


The Heart of Hate

by SevenBetter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basic Bitch Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream, Beach Town, Ben "I am literally the worst communicator" Solo, Enemies AND Lovers really, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Falling into a pile of cardboard boxes in pursuit of oral sex, Finn is the creative genius of Rey's, Frottage, Hate Sex, I loathe you but also want to kiss your face, Ice Cream Parlors, If you like oak barrels and artisinal flavor combos, Oral Sex, POV Ben Solo, POV Rey (Star Wars), Phasma is the kindly backbone of Ben's business, Poe is basically omniscient and sees through everyone's nonsense, Porn With Plot, Rey "I take no shit from Ben Solo" Johnson, Small Business Owners, Whiskey Distilleries, Why talk about your problems when you could just bang it out and walk away, it's a mess, this is the fic for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-01-29 04:33:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 119,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenBetter/pseuds/SevenBetter
Summary: "Any eggplant emoji in your life, Rey?"Blessedly, Rose is watching some far-off surfers. Rey can't imagine that admitting her tryst -okay fine, two trysts- with Ben is a smart idea."Oh, uh, nope. No eggplant. It's as dusty and empty as a Victorian attic down there," Rey says, deciding humor is her best defense, and Rose nearly chokes on her beer as giggles seize control of her."If only there were a dusty Victorian attic emoji." Rose mutters, and Rey reaches out to clink her bottle against her friend's.In reality, Rey would probably describe her attic as sparsely decorated but well-cared for, at this particular juncture. Ben knows what he's doing.But Rose, even with her minimal interest in being judgy, would probably raise a critical eyebrow if Rey admitted the stubborn asshole next door was the one who has twice now... spruced Rey's attic.----------------------------------------------------------------AKA: Rey and Ben are each hard-working small business owners in a quiet beach town, determined to succeed, whose feuding and fighting lead to one other F-word that they also do together.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Phasma, Finn/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 650
Kudos: 1139





	1. Reluctant Captain

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!
> 
> I'm not new to the fandom (longtime reader) but after months of this story brewing within my very soul, I have caved and given birth to it.
> 
> (Gross metaphor?)
> 
> Anyways, thoughts, feelings, and feedback are welcome. I'd love to get to know some others in this community! Thanks for reading :)

Title, and much of the story's thematic inspiration, taken from [Dante Gabriel Rosetti's poem The "Cloud Confines"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45007/the-cloud-confines)

\-------

_ **A Friday night in May, 9:00 PM** _

Rey's hand strokes the coarse linen of the folded apron, draped over her arm. The sound of the waves filters in, now that the street's grown quiet. 

She takes a deep breath, eyes wide, and stares into the fading light.

She stares at the neat white window boxes, filled with succulents of every shape and size. The blue block letters carefully spaced and nailed along the wood paneled wall. The red door, the one Poe had insisted on, still slightly sticky with fresh paint. 

Rey feels a surge of hope, and fear if she's honest, as she looks at it. Her hand grips the apron more tightly and she breathes out, "You did it. You had a dream, and you did it." 

She approaches the door and checks the knob one more time, just to be sure it's locked. Then she turns on her heel, a fine layer of sand scraping between her sandal and the sidewalk, and starts off towards home.

IRRESISTIBLE Ice Cream and Novelties stands waiting, patiently, for its opening day.

\-------

Poe's informal data gathering was correct it seems - he many have even underestimated local interest just to keep Rey's expectations low, but for a soft opening it's more than she ever could have hoped. 

Some of the customers are families, who heard through flyers or parenting groups or on Facebook that there was an ice cream parlor coming to Coruscant Beach. Others are passersby who notice the windows flung open, or see all different flavors heaped atop their signature light blue waffle cones, and decide to pop in. 

Just for the soft opening, they prepped 100 gallons, three hundred ice cream sandwiches, and two dozen each of their assorted novelties: tiny tiramisu cakes in jars, individual pies shaped like flying saucers, pale pink cookies sculpted like sea shells...whatever Finn dreamt up that week. 

All of it sells out. All of it. Thankfully the day ends right on the cusp of having to turn people away, the nearby beach finally becoming barren of visitors, and they close up shop. 

Rey's too distracted for a while to be dumbstruck, but after she's done cleaning and prepping and thanking the team for their insane amount of work, she finds herself back in that same spot, staring at the front of her dark shop, ruminating on the day.

She doesn't know how long she spends lost in thought, but eventually the little produce mart next to her on the corner goes dark too, and a short woman emerges, locking up and turning to head towards the lone car left on the street.

Rey grins a little. "Are you Rose?" She calls out, and the woman whirls around.

"Yes! You must be Rey!" Rose is every bit as exuberant as her parents intimated, smiling widely, her demeanor matching the sunny orange cotton blouse she wears.

"Nice to finally meet you." Rey holds her hand out.

"You too, my parents really enjoyed watching your place come together."

"They're too kind," Rey insists,"The construction noise was enough to drive someone mad. They were so patient. I'll miss having them around."

"Oh, don't worry too much." Rose's mouth twists wryly. "Even though they transferred ownership to me, they're too protective not to drop by unannounced, _just_ to be sure I can handle running their business."

Rey chuckles, "I'm sorry if that's a pain in your ass, but I'm looking forward to seeing them again." 

Rose shrugs. "Agreed. It could always be worse. They could still be exepcting me to work _for _them."

Rey shudders. At the end of the day, her budget may be tighter and her workload bigger, but this place is hers, something to call her own, and ultimately that's what matters most. 

"Do you live near here?"

Rose gestures up the hill, "In Falcon Heights," she explains, and shifts her bag on her shoulder.

"Well don't let me keep you, I was just headed home myself."

Rose bids her goodnight and Rey turns on her way, walking parallel to the beach. The road slants diagonally closer and closer to the sand until the sidewalk borders the hardy beach grasses that sprout far back from the water. 

She listens to the wind in the greenery, the roar of the water, the occasional cry of a gull. Even without another person in sight, this place pulses with life. At night back in the desert, the air was still, the sand undisturbed, a landscape that felt stifling and dead in the darkness. But here, you don't need to see the world to feel its vitality. 

Twenty minutes of walking and Rey is climbing the stairs to her bungalow. Maz rents the garage space below to various surfers, allowing them to keep their equipment right next to the water for a cheap rate. 

The bungalow is shabby and creaky, but full of that same life Rey feels thrumming down on the beach. It's one big room, stretching the two-car, double deep garage underneath. Rey's bed is pressed to the front wall, closest to the water, her mismatched thrift store sheets tangled. An old paisley couch, two wingback chairs, and a huge stack of board games occupy the middle of the room. She has a small TV on a lazy susan, so that she can turn it one way to watch in bed, or turn it towards the couch to watch when friends come over. Not that she has much time for TV, or for hosting friends. She can't remember the last time she got use out of her Netflix subscription.

The kitchen is in the far back, all the appliances along the back wall, with a tiny bathroom hiding in the corner. Rey's stomach growls as she sights the fridge, and she ends up eating Spaghetti Os straight from the large serving dish in which she had her leftovers. She can practically hear Poe yelling at her to get a bowl.

Her chubby calico cat leaps down from a cieling beam, peering into the bowl and yowling when Rey gently nudges her away. "No, Bebe. Your bowl is full of kibble. Don't be greedy."

The cat gives her a withering glare, sauntering off to pick at her own food before returning and laying squarely on top of Rey's bare feet.

Rey thinks back on the day as she eats, of kids faces smeared in chocolate syrup and one woman's blissed out, eyes-closed face as she bit into one of Finn's shell cookies. She thinks of one mom who exclaimed that their kids' every victory would be celebrated with Irresistibe Ice Cream, the couple who asked if they might make a cake for their anniversary next month. 

She thinks of warm smiles and all the hands she shook and names she'll try desperately to remember. She feels her cat purring and thinks of the long hug Poe gave her before he headed out for the night. 

Her eyes begin to well up and she fights it, sniffing.

She's found a place where she belongs. And no matter how hard she has to work, no matter the sacrifices she must make, she's going to stay there.

\-------

_ **Three months later** _

Rey suddenly understands Mr and Mrs. Tico's protectiveness over their business. when she walks up to the storefront only to find that she can't see it.

She can't see it because there is a thirty-foot white trailer truck parked in front, the oak doors of the empty business to the left are flung open, massive pieces of metal equipment she can't identify being wheeled in. The building owners failed to mention the last of the three storefronts had found a tenant.

It's still early, no one's hit the beach yet except for a few runners and old dudes with metal detectors, but she knows in two hours the beach will be packed with visitors and locals alike.

The heat wave has also meant a wave of even more ice cream consumption, Finn barely making novelties because he's so occupied churning out gallon after gallon of the frozen favorite, and while Rey goes home bone-tired every day, she also goes home having made more money than she ever expected, and it's given her a sense of security she's never felt before.

So the sight of a truck standing in the way of a single person noticing her business is, understandably, slightly perturbing. 

She approaches the guy with a clipboard standing near the cab of the truck. "Excuse me sir? I'm gonna need you to move this vehicle somewhere else?"

He looks up, red hair glinting in the sunlight, and sighs. "Do you see a parking lot?"

Rey blinks, then shakes her head.

"Right. Then no, I won't be moving it, because there's nowhere to move it to."

Rey scoffs. "You can't just block my entire business." 

He glances up, directs lazy, cold eyes to the red door, and looks back at her. "Just move your board further down the sidewalk."

"My tiny sandwich board advertising flavors of the week isn't exactly a match for the full length and height of my actual store." She says, her voice hardening. "Move the truck." 

"No." He says, not even bothering to look at her, scribbling more notes on his clipboard.

She feels her anger rising as a woman exits the front doors of the vacant space. "Hi, are you in charge here?"

The blonde woman blinks, glancing over Reys shoulder to the man, and Rey's never felt short before, but she's frustrated this is the situation in which she first experiences that. 

"Not really, but maybe I can help." She says slowly, eyes sliding back down to where Rey stands.

"Thanks. I own Irresistible Ice Cream, and a good chunk of my customer base finds us by noticing the store from the beach. Having my entire business blocked by this truck is a huge detriment to that. I was hoping it could be moved."

"Phaz, don't bother, it's just..." the man starts, but the woman holds up her hand.

"The problem is, we need it to be as close to the entrance as possible. We have a ton of delicate equipment and we need to transport it the shortest possible distance."

Rey sighs, and knows asking them to do it another day would be utterly unrealistic, and remembers the Ticos' patience as she had renovated, causing dust and noise and hauling truckloads of debris away every day for a week. She's just about to concede defeat when Rose's sweet voice filters over.

"What's happening over here?" She asks mildly, but Rey knows she probably already has a read on the situation. 

"I was hoping they could move the truck, since it's blocking the whole parlor." Rey explains, and Rose's eyebrows furrow. 

"Did you guys try the back alley?" Rose counters, and both the blonde woman and the ginger man are silent. Eventually, Rose shakes her head. "Well, my vegetable guy is parked back there while he sets up his displays inside, but Rey, if you can help with the displays, he can finish unloading now and get out of the way. These folks can take his spot."

The redhead speaks. "We need to be as close to the storefront as possible to move the fragile equip-"

Rose cuts him off. "You'll be able to get the back of the truck right up against the kitchen doors, if you want. It's gotta be ten feet closer than being parked out here." There's an awkward pause.

From Rey, or anyone else, the words would come out ascerbic, but Rose has just the right amount of innate sweetness that her every sentence comes out like helpful advice. 

"Oh." The woman says, and then springs into action. "Okay. Well, I'll just let everyone know, and we can-"

"Let everyone know what?" Another, deeper voice says from inside the double doors, and everyone turns. Rey's not sure how five people got stuffed into this clown car of a conversation, but she sighs and turns to look around the group.

Only to see a man who's even taller than these other two. Is this business owned by a recreational basketball team? 

His dark hair hangs longish, nearly to his shoulders. He has a serious, interesting face and brown eyes that dart among all of them clustered on the sidewalk. "Tell everyone what?" He repeats, and his voice is low, like it comes from his belly somewhere, and he slides his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. 

"Ben, she let us know that if we pull the truck into the back alley we can get the equipment much closer to the kitchen than if we are out here. Her vegetable guy just needs to move."

Ben, as he was called, blinks at Rose. His gaze darts to Rey and lingers for an odd moment, then shifts back."Vegetable guy?"

"Yep. Jeff." Rose supplies.

"Jeff is a vegetable...guy?"

"He's a farmer." Rose elaborates.

Ben looks around for a moment, his eyebrows pinching together, and then his face smooths out. "Do you own Tico's?"

Rose nods, and sticks her hand out. "I'm Rose."

Ben slides a hand out of his pocket, long-fingered and rough looking, all chapped skin and faded white scars. "I'm Ben. This here is Phasma, and Hux."

Rose gestures to her. "This is Rey, from Irresistible."

Ben's brow furrows again just as his hand eclipses Rey's. "Irresistible?" He says slowly, their hands lingering in a clasp.

Rey uses her free hand to point behind her. "Yes. The ice cream parlor. That you currently can't see, and no one can see, because this truck is in the way."

She expects him to apologize, or to smile at meeting a new neighbor, but his face maintains its cool neutrality. He suddenly notices his hand is still in hers, pulling away. He shrugs, "It's too early for ice cream anyway."

Rey frowns. She doesn't like his tone. She doesn't bother to mention they don't open for three more hours. "It's never too early for ice cream." She mutters, and Ben looks back from the storefront to her, looking confused by her fervor.

He chuckles, "Sorry, I don't really do sweets."

Rey barks out a hard laugh and stares at him, crossing her arms. "Impossible. Everyone has something sweet they like."

His mouth twists to one side as he considers it. "Nope."

"No cake? No type of cookie? Not a single variety of candy?" She prompts.

"Uh, well, super super dark chocolate. Like the 84% cacao bitter type. Without much sugar."

Rey huffs, "That shouldn't even count as a confection!" She almost yells.

Some part of her brain wonders how she ended up here, yelling at a tall, curmudgeonly, handsome man on the sidewalk when she's supposed to be prepping for the day ahead.

Rose swerves in. "Just texted Jeff, so he should be out of the alley in just a few. So what sort of place are you guys opening up?"

"Whiskey." Ben and Hux say in unison, while Phasma follows up with "A distillery, and a tasting room."

Rey glances in, noting the dimensions inside, and says, "Isn't it a little small for a distillery?"

"Our production so far has been pretty small scale, and we have one other facility in a warehouse nearby. This is meant to be the front-facing piece where we can build a brand, get the word out, get people excited about out products." Phasma explains, and Rey can hear the excitement in her voice.

"I take it you're the business arm of the operation, hmm?" Rey asks, and grins, thinking of Poe.

Phasma nods. "Hux is a biochemist by trade, he handles a lot of the technical production data."

Rey looks back at Mr. Sugar Hater. "And you?"

"Owner, founder, reluctant captain of the ship." Ben describes, and just then, Jeff's truck comes around the corner and Jeff raises a hand to wave to Rose as he goes on by.

"I guess we have some veggies to stack," Rose says, clapping her hands together, and Rey nods, turning to her.

"And I guess we have a truck to move," Ben mutters. Hux, his face still pinched at the prospect of acquiescing, turns towards the truck. Ben pulls some keys off a caribiner on his belt loop and tosses them over, while Phasma wanders inside.

"Hey, thanks." Rey says to him as she trails Rose, but before her words are out Ben is gone, leaving Rey feeling stupid for having thanked him in the first place. Hux was downright hostile. They don't deserve it. Ben doesn't even like ice cream.

She watches him go for a moment, broad back and narrow hips, long legs carrying him through the doors in a matter of strides. The top of his head is an inch or two from the upper door frame, and the darkness inside the soon-to-be distillery swallows him.

Rey hears the engine of the truck rumble to life, and hopes these people don't truly warrant the apprehension she's starting to feel.

\-------

If only she new.


	2. Inopportune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Doesn't it make you...feel something?" She asks softly, desperately, taking a step closer. He can see the freckles across her nose, now. 
> 
> "Like what?"
> 
> "Like...anything. One shred of emotion is all I'm asking, here." 
> 
> He wants to brush her off. He wants to shrug and be dismissive, to maintain the casual indifference he's worn so far, but those big hazel eyes stare at him in a way he can't describe. Like all the things he's trying to hide are plain for her to see. Uncontrolled, the truth slips out of him.

When Phasma told Ben about the great location she scouted, she didn't mention _the window. _

She mentioned the beautifully stained oak, the long, weathered bar with a brass rail attached, the big French doors and beautiful tile. The kitchen area that could support a limited menu of appetizers, the private room they could use for special tastings. It sounded perfect, and now that Ben was here, he could see it really was perfect.

But she hadn't mentioned the window. It was long, horizontal and narrow. It was set into the wall on your right as you walked in. It had a single pane of rectangular glass, and it provided a view into the space next door.

The ice cream parlor. _Irresistible_, Ben reminds himself, glancing through. Compared to the dark wood and deep green walls of the distillery, the parlor is all glossy white surfaces and neon cafe chairs. One huge wall is covered in polaroids of the customers who came during opening day. 

A flicker of movement catches his eye. It's the woman, Rey, with a tray of baked goods held in her arms, whisking through the door from what must be her own kitchen area. She places the tray on the counter, sliding row upon row of cookies into the pastry case. Ben can see her lips moving slowly. _She must have music playing._

He turns back to his own space, staring at the pile of high tables that need to be arranged throughout the room, the ornate gilt mirror that needs to be hung over the bar. 

He thinks of all the hours spent toiling in the warehouse, with the corrugated metal walls and the concrete floor, hustling his product to every beverage expo and trendy cocktail bar in the city. Until finally, one day he had enough profit and enough interested investors to move into a space like this.

He sighs, reaching out to touch the wainscoting, and closes his eyes, impatient for First Order Whiskey to look the way he sees it in his mind. 

\-------

Rey and Finn are just wrapping up for the night, giving the counters a final wipe and checking to be sure everything is set for tomorrow. Weekends are always busiest, so Friday night prep takes the longest. The last customers are filtering out, the ocean air coming in through the open windows.

The bell on the joor jingles, and Rey looks up to bid someone goodnight as they leave, only to see the blonde woman from First Order coming in.

"Hey," Rey says, with s small smile, "Phasma, right?" 

She nods and her thin lips turn up at the corners. "Yep. Just wanted to drop by and apologize for getting off on the wrong foot that way with the truck."

Finn looks confused. "What?"

"It's no big deal." Rey shrugs." I'm glad we were able to get it resolved painlessly." She refolds the damp rag before her on the counter. "Besides, you were the least obnoxious out of the three of you."

Phasma snorts. "That may be true. I'm also the one most likely to say I'm sorry." 

Rey laughs, "Yeah, I'm not surprised." She turns to Finn. "Phasma is the business brain for First Order."

Finn nods, "Oh, so you work with Mister Tall, Dark, and Angry?"

Phasma lets out a shocked bark of laughter but is grinning, nodding. Rey can't say she finds any fault in Finn's description.

Over the past few weeks as the distillers moved in and set up, Rey became aware of Ben's...big emotions...even from a distance. He could often be spotted out on the sidewalk or through the shared window, gesticulating wildly at someone about something, the harsh, low tones of his voice carrying even if his words couldn't be heard. Some days he can be seen watching every little thing, micromanaging like his life depends on it. Other days he completely disappears. But no matter how much progress they make, how much closer they get to opening, he has never deviated from two facial expressions: cool neutrality and pinched annoyance, a hairsbreadth away from seeming mad. 

"Are you having issues with the move?" Finn presses, as though trying to justify Ben's almost comical storminess.

"No, it's been fine." Phasma says with a wave of her hand, "Ben's just like that. Always has been. I bet he was born that way."

"Didn't realize people could be born with sticks up their asses." Finn counters, and Rey smothers a laugh into her shoulder.

"Maybe once everything gets settled, he'll mellow out a little." Phasma posits.

"If not, Rose down at Tico's is a specialist in removing sticks from asses. There's not a person alive whom she can't get to smile." Finn intones, and Rey nods in agreement. 

Rey thinks to herself that it's not Ben who's most in need of Rose's relentless, endearing joy, but rather Hux. After the truck incident he seemed to have no problem leaving equipment boxes right in front of Irresistible's front door, asking them to turn the water line off at the most inopportune times while First Order re-routs some pipes. He spent a full evening hammering in the new taps, and it _just happened_ to be the night of Finn's first community baking class held at the parlor. 

Every time Rey asks him if they could hold off for an hour to shut off the water, or requests that a box be moved, or reminds them that the office space upstairs is for the use of all three businesses, she gets nothing but a snide comment. He never listens, never apologizes.

Hux doesn't seem to take Rey seriously, as a person or as a business owner. Rey hates that he's spoiling the easy camaraderie of their little corner at the very end of Cowry Avenue.

But worse, Rey hates that building and running a successful shop, being polite and friendly and patient, all of it isn't enough for someone to respect her. It shouldn't bother her, she barely even knows the guy, but Hux's blatant disdain makes her feel like all she has achieved in life doesn't matter.

She shakes the thoughts away and jumps back into the conversation. "Since you came here for a truce, I think it's only fitting I make a peace offering." She sweeps her hand to the ice cream display before her. "What would you like? On the house." 

Phasma's eyes light up, and she glances down. "Oh! I, um...." Her light, light blue eyes flick back and forth between the five-gallon canisters inside the freezer case. 

Rey knows well that there are two ways people order ice cream. Some people's eyes stay glued to the written list on the wall; others barely glance at it, discerning among the colors and textures what looks most appealing. She first noticed back when she was helping sell ice cream out of Plutt's vans in New Mexico.

Phasma is the latter. She finally looks up and says "A scoop of that one, please. Are those cherries?"

Finn gloves up and does his thing, the muscles in his arms working as he shapes the pink marbled ice cream into a near-perfect sphere. The color contrast is lovely against the light blue of the cone.

Phasma takes a bite, and Rey mentally conjures up the flavor: the condensed milk swirled into vanilla, then tart unsweetened cherries, finished off with a vein of apricot compote like a seam of ore running through a mountain. _Jubilee Cherry_, one of their best sellers.

Her eyes widen. "Oh my god," she says on a chuckle, glancing back at them. They're both grinning. "Thanks, this is amazing." She begins to back towards the door. "I'll be back around again soon!"

The bell jingles again and Finn goes back to cleaning, but Rey's eyes linger on Phasma, walking out into the dusk to a bench across the street. From the bench you can see a slice of the beach, down a gentle slope of scrubby bushes and sand, and Phasma sits down, eating slowly. She looks content.

Rey turns her head, and there through the window into next door stands Ben. It looks a lot like he's staring out at Phasma too. He stands near the bar, stacks of paperwork around him. He looks tense, as usual, that line between his eyebrows, as usual. His mouth pulled into a frown, as usual. 

He doesn't notice Rey looking at him, so she stares for a long time. There's so much latent power in the frame of his body, he looks like he should constantly be in motion. To see him keeping so still is a little unnatural, like time itself has stopped moving. 

Rey's not so sure what he needs is for Rose to get the stick out of his ass.

She has a slightly different plan.

\-------

At two in the afternoon, on a Wednesday, Rey gets her chance. 

She sees him walking in, a cardboard box under his arm, which he sets down and begins rummaging through. He's so tall that the high-top table, which would probably hit Rey at about the rib cage, hits him near his hips. As Rey mindlessly stirs the waffle cone batter, she lets her eyes roam up his torso.

He pulls a lightbulb out of the box, and when reaches up to place it into a socket on the wall, his other arm comes up to steady himself.

His shirt pulls up, revealing a strip of skin above his jeans, which of course it does, because his torso is so damn long. 

Rey sees pale skin, and she catches the protrusion of muscle, cutting towards the middle of his body just above his hip bone. From there it disappears into the waistband of his jeans. 

She stirs a little too hard and some of the batter spills over onto her hand. It breaks her from her reverie.

_What are you_ doing? She rinses the batter off her hand and shakes herself, alarmed at her open gawking.

_He could have a twelve-pack. It doesn't make him any less of an asshole._

As she dries her hands, she reminds herself of her intent, pulling one of Finn's little cakes from the case and sliding it into a little waxed paper bag. 

It's one of his Beach Bakes, their most popular type of novelty, and it's designed to look like a sun umbrella. Striped frosting decorates the dome of the umbrella, but a surprise of lemon cream filling inside the chocolate cake is really what does it.

She takes a breath and steps towards the door. At the last second she removes her apron before calling to Finn, "I'm taking my fifteen!" 

The bell jingles as she marches out and turns right.

\-------

Ben's just finished screwing the Edison bulbs into fixture on the wall when he hears footsteps come in the door.

"Hux, could you check the storage room for the-" He turns. 

Hux isn't standing there.

It's Rey, the ice cream woman, standing there in jeans and a faded purple t-shirt, the hems of the sleeves rolled up to reveal a deep tan line on her toned arms. She's wearing heavy leather workboots and her hair is pulled back from her face, unlike when they met, when it was loose and wavy around her shoulders. 

_Why do you remember what her hair looked like?_ He questions himself. He has a mountain of things to do. He hasn't slept well in six days. He stares at her silently, but she just stares back, her mouth resting in that smile-but-not-a-smile that seems like her default expression. 

"Can I help you with something?" He finally mutters, hands on his hips, and Rey's face twitches before she speaks.

"I'm surprised you mistook me for Hux at first, considering I don't carry a tangible cloud of malice with me everywhere I go."

He blinks, then takes a breath, "Well he's the one I need to finish this up, so let me know what I can do for you."

She rolls her eyes, such an open display of annoyance that he nearly visibly reacts, but before he can say anything, she announces, "I'm here to change your mind about sweets."

Ben doesn't know what do to with that information.

He frowns, crosses his arms. "Why?"

She sighs, "Because sweets are a rare joy in this bleak and desolate world. Because sweets are a reminder that every moment doesn't have to be in suffering if only we know where to turn to find a moment of happiness."

She says it in this droll tone, but he can't help but think she's really showing her hand here, revealing the internalized passions that led her to open an entire shop that's like a Mecca for sugar addicts.

He wants to mock her for it.

He can't, because he has all those same thoughts about whiskey. Making it, and drinking it, and talking about it, are his respite from the never-ending struggle of life. 

But he doesn't tell her that. Instead he raises one eyebrow and says, low and long, "Oookay. And how do you propose to provoke such a feeling in me?"

She reaches out, proffering a small blue crinkling bag, and he reaches out to take it. Inside is a small cake, perhaps the size of the palm of his hand, frosted on top with dense chocolate cake underneath.

"What's this?" He says. _Jesus Christ, you idiot._

"It's...a cake."

He feels his cheeks burn. "What kind of cake?"

"Dark chocolate. With lime and ginger frosting. I seem to recall you mentioning chocolate is the one confection you _occasionally enjoy_." Her voice drips with derision. He squirms a little, that she remembers their first conversation so clearly. 

"Yep." He confirms, and stands there, just holding the bag. Rey begins to tap her foot.

"You gonna try it?" She asks, eyebrows jumping up as she waits.

"While you're still standing here?" She nods, foot tapping faster.

"I want to see your face when you realize how right I am, about the importance of dessert."

"Do you always feel the need to be right all the time?" It slips out before he really thinks about it, and her eyes widen.

_Fuck. _She looks taken aback for half a second, but then huffs out a laugh, widening her already generous mouth. A piece of hair slips out of her braid as she shakes her head and she tucks it behind her ear.

"No, Ben. I'll freely admit there's a lot I don't know about the world. And that means I'm wrong a lot." She chuckles again. "But about this specific thing? Yeah, I feel pretty confident I know what I'm talking about."

"Fine," he shrugs, setting the bag on the table before him and pulling out the cake, "suit yourself." He holds it between thumb and forefinger and takes a bite, chews, swallows. 

Rey is patient, but he keeps his gaze on the cake, and so finally she says, "Well?"

He licks a tiny speck of frosting from the corner of his mouth, considering. "It's okay."

Her eyes bug out, she guffaws in a very ungainly way, and crosses her arms tightly, leaning a little towards him.

"Okay? OKAY? That cake is our second best-selling item. I wasn't arrogant enough to bring over my own ice cream thinking that might convince you, but Finn's cake? That's a different story." She points a thin finger, with blue chipping nail polish, at his hand. "That's the cake that earned us a write up in Coastal Dining magazine back when we still only had the dessert truck. That's the cake that sold out in the first two hours of opening day." She pauses for breath, but she isn't done. She's yelling now. "That's the cake we made for Poe the day his dog got hit by a car." 

Ben stares at her, both alarmed and fascinated by her intensity. _Why does a silly cake mean so much to her?_

Ben chalks it up to something he's already decided: she's strange. She's been strange since Day One, with her bottomless sunniness and manic, animated energy. She's like a Disney princess on cocaine.

Ben's seen the way she snorts when she laughs and the stupid way she wears her hair in three buns. She even allows _dogs_ inside her shop, which must be a health code violation, not to mention undignified. What gave her any right to barge in and tell him how he should feel about something? Why did she care so much?

"Doesn't it make you...feel something?" She asks softly, desperately, taking a step closer. He can see the freckles across her nose, now. 

"Like what?"

"Like...anything. One shred of emotion is all I'm asking, here." 

He wants to brush her off. He wants to shrug and be dismissive, to maintain the casual indifference he's worn so far, but those big hazel eyes stare at him in a way he can't describe. Like all the things he's trying to hide are plain for her to see. Uncontrolled, the truth slips out of him.

"The ginger." He mumbles, and her face flickers.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he confirms, "My dad used to make ginger blueberry pie every year at Thanksgiving. From peeling it, his hands would smell like ginger for hours. That's what the frosting reminds me of." 

He immediately wants to stuff all the words back down his throat. 

His face burns again, this time in embarrassment and a little bit of anger, that all it took was one intense tirade from her to crack right through his defenses straight to his greatest vulnerability, his most protected secret: his parents. 

Even Phasma and Hux know next to nothing about his family. And that's the way he likes it.

Despite the randomness of his comment, Rey she doesn't look confused.

She hears of the pie, and his father's hands, and the righteous indignation fades from her expression. Her eyes dart all over his face, which only compounds his feeling of total transparency, and her posture relaxes.

"Well. I guess that's something." She says with finality.

"I guess it is." His eyes roam around the rest of the room. _Please leave,_ he radiates at her. 

"You gonna finish it?" She asks tentatively, shifting on her feet.

He makes a wordless noise. "Probably offer it to Phaz. She likes your stuff a lot." 

Rey nods. She's still looking at him. 

Most people are so occupied with his abraisiveness that nothing else bleeds through. But Rey's silence, and the way she lingers, tells him something different.

"Sorry to interrupt your work." She finally says, and drifts back out the door. He waits to see her enter through her own door and get back behind the counter, but the seconds tick by, and she doesn't.

He peers out through First Order's open doorway and she's standing on the sidewalk, hands in her back pockets, staring out at that patch of ocean you can see between the two weathered beach houses. She's so still it could be a photograph.

Ben puts the cake behind the bar. The little bag against the dark wood taunts him, and he must reach to throw it away a dozen times.

But he doesn't.

And he doesn't offer it to Phasma, or Hux, or anyone else. 

But that night, he comes down from the common office upstairs, after making a few extra copies of their lease. The street is silent, Rose and Rey and Finn plus Ben's entire team have long since gone home. It's just him, and the dim light from the kitchen spilling into First Order's front room. The light gleams off the bar, and illuminates that bag, sitting innocently near a box of silverware yet to be unpacked.

He sighs. The resolve and residual embarrassment that had carried him through the day has fled. He walks softly over to the bag and reaches inside.

The cake is beautiful, the pale orange frosting blending into stripes of lime green. Ben sits down on an empty wooden cask resting behind the bar, and slowly, cautiously takes a bite.

The rich, dark chocolate hits his tongue first, the sweetness and sharpness of the frosting slowly mixing on his tongue, and then, that soft tangy lemon cream in the middle, that you didn't know the cake needed until you tasted it. The riot of flavors makes Ben's mouth water, already anticipating the next bite, but he forces himself to take it slowly. 

A strong gusty breeze carries all the way to where he sits, ruffling his hair and bringing the briny scent of the water.

As he swallows and the flavors fade, he's left with the piquant of the ginger clinging to his palate. 

He remembers Thanksgiving, feeling warm and too full. He would sit with his dad in the recliner after dessert. His mother wouldn't let them watch any football until dinner was over. His dad would turn the volume low because Ben was sleepy, and eventually he would end up sprawled across his Dad's lap, drifting off to the feel of a hand stroking over his dark hair, the smell of ginger around him. 

The memory makes his chest feel like it's slowly being crushed.

_There you go, Rey._ _The cake did make me feel something. You happy?_

He crunches the empty waxed bag in one tight fist, and takes another bite.

\-------

"It's like he's allergic to happiness! Allergic to all things good! His face didn't even _change_ when he tried the cake, Rose." Rey is well aware that she's yelling, but can't bring herself to care. They're sitting on the beach, each with a beer in hand, sand covering their toes as the sun slowly sinks to the horizon. 

Rose rolls her eyes and takes a swig of her beer. "Clearly insane."

"Clearly!" Rey echoes, than makes a wordless noise of disgust. Rose looks at her from the corner of her eye and Rey stares back. "What?"

"I just...don't get mad at me." Rose says in a small voice, and Rey tenses, but nods. "Why is this bugging you so much?"

"Why is what bugging me so much?"

"The fact that Ben didn't like the cake." Rose holds her hands up. "I understand that it feels like a personal slight, and it's a shame that he doesn't enjoy something so delicious, but why are you so stuck on it? You've gotten a few mediocre reviews before. I've seen the comment cards."

Rey digests that for a moment, and realizes...she's not sure why.

But Rey Johnson is never not sure of herself, so she tries to build a rationale.

"Those reviews are always anonymous." She says weakly, and Rose doesn't appear convinced, so she goes on, "The negative criticism was never associated with a face. To watch someone try something you worked so hard to produce and they just...don't even care? Sure, that bugged me, but." She sighs. "That wasn't it."

"Then what was it?" Rose presses.

Rey thinks for a long time before speaking. "He never, ever looks happy, Rose. Ever. And I just want to believe in the power of my products to penetrate whatever bullshit people have on their minds and just make them pleased for a moment, even if it's just til they finish the last bite. I want to believe this has more meaning than just sugar highs, and cute cones people can put on Instagram."

Rose sighs, leaning over and into Rey's shoulder until they're supporting one another. 

"One bitter distiller does not a bad pastry make." Rose says solemnly, and while Rey can't help the way she grins, and snorts.

"Thanks for that wisdom, Voltaire."

They both laugh for a moment, but the moment sobers. "Seriously Rey. I know you want everyone to love the experience of dessert as much as you do, and so many people share that with you, but not everybody does. Maybe this is a good reminder that you can't please all the people all the time."

Rey considers it. "Yeah, good point."

But she can't help but think that she doesn't want to please everyone. And she certainly doesn't expect to please them all the time.

She just really, really wants to see Ben Solo smile.

She doesn't say that, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Ben ever admit to Rey that he liked the cake?  
Will Rey ever realize her relentless need for approval will never be satisfied?  
Will Hux find out nobody likes him?
> 
> Keep tuning in to find out.
> 
>   
Hope you enjoyed :) Thanks for reading!


	3. Henchman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She takes a deep breath, takes several breaths when she realizes she's panting. Anger is still rolling off her in a blazing corona, and Ben's whole body is tense. 
> 
> She's not sure how they ended up so close to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids.

After the Cake Incident, it's more difficult for them to ignore each other. The window provides such a direct view into each other's domains. It's all too easy to be glancing around the room and see the happenings on the other side of the glass.

Rey sees Ben moving more furniture in, gesturing to the walls or to a piece of paper while he talks to a member of the team. She still sees him yelling a lot, especially on the phone, but once, just once, she sees him glancing around the room, and that plush mouth starts to curve upwards.

Rey was halfway through moving the iron for the waffle cones, but she stops straight, arrested by the total change it brings to his face.

His eyes soften, their dark brown seeming almost...sweet, instead of menacing. His shoulders relax, his normally dead straight posture slumping a little. She sees the barest hint of his teeth as he smiles, and he stays like that for a long moment, before dropping his hands from his hips and walking towards the back room.

She looks back down and lifts the iron, setting it down in its normal spot, replaying that tiny smirk in her head.

Irresistible's been busy lately. So busy that Rey fails to notice Ben's been watching her right back. 

He's good at being subtle about it; a lifetime as a wallflower has given him a lot of practice at remaining present but unseen. When he's busy with paperwork or on hold with his contractor, he'll look over and see her handing a heaped cone to a little kid, so much light in her eyes they almost seem to glow.

Or packing up a group of those pastries, folding the corners of the crisp blue box to slide over to a customer. She looks so easy, so natural in her space, like she was meant to be there. 

Ben's apprehension, about whether the tasting room is where _he's_ meant to be, flares hotter and stronger in that moment. 

His gaze darts back to her all afternoon, eyes following her grace as she moves around. At closing time, she even makes mopping the floors look artful.

But then he thinks back to the cake. When she lured something out of him that he didn't want to give. He couldn't even tell her it tasted good, or say thank you. Let alone explain why the reminder of his dad upset him, and only made it even more awkward.

It was mortifying. And he's not going to waste his time mortifying himself in front of someone whose attention seems like it would be similar to standing before the sun.

Bright and warm, overwhelming if confronted by it too directly, but lovely in small doses.

So he avoids her. Her and all that she radiates.

\-------

"Bye, thanks again, I'll give you a call once we have a mock up." Rey shakes the hand of both parents, while their daughter skips off. Her Quincenera ice cream cake is going to be a thing of beauty, and Rey can't wait to see what Finn comes up with.

She files the paperwork in their special orders cabinet and drifts into the kitchen, mouth feeling dry. She's pretty sure she's never been this bone-tired in her life, wincing at the fluorescent lights, desperate to finish her routine for the night and get home.

She grabs an empty cup. 

When she turns the tap, nothing happens. She flips the handle back and forth a few times, and nothing, not even a drop.

She tries to contain her frustration, but when she looks up and sees the sink stacked with dirty mixing bowls from Finn's class earlier this evening, and a bin of metal scoops that need to be cleaned, and realizing she still needs to wash the counters, her anger boils over.

This is the third time this week that Hux shut off the main water supply because of construction at First Order. More importantly, it's the third time without asking their permission. Each time she's tried to talk to Hux about it, she's met with nothing but bored disdain, and the occasional snide insult. 

Rey has clean up to do, prep to do. There's a golden retriever meetup at the beach tomorrow and she's expecting a crazy day full of her signature dairy-free puppy sundaes. 

She marches out of the kitchen. She pulls the distillery's heavy door open, and the lights in the back are on, but when she yells "Hello?" she gets no answer. 

She's about to grab her phone and text Phasma when she hears the creaking of footsteps coming from over her head. She narrows her eyes and darts outside, around the back, to the staircase that runs up between her parlor and Tico's. There's a small office space up there: two computers, a fax and copy machine, paper and other supplies. 

A second heat wave has persisted for the last week, and even in the short time it takes her to mount the stairs, she's begun sweating. She prays this is a short conversation: there's no A/C up there.

Rey throws open the door and begins to say, in a very hard and somewhat loud tone, "Okay, so this is third time that you ha-" She stops short.

There stands not an arrogant, sneering redhead, just waiting for a chance to express his contempt, but Ben.

Oops.

Ben, whose normally stormy facial expression now just looks bewildered at having her blow in out of nowhere. 

"Oh." Rey says belatedly, and he just shakes his head. "I thought you were Hux."

"And why, if I may ask, were you planning on screaming at him like this?"

"I wasn't screaming," Rey defends, loudly. Ben gives her a look. "Fine. I needed to talk to him about the water."

"The water?"

"Yes."

"Like, the ocean out there?" Ben gestures in the direction of the beach.

"No, the water coming through the pipes, into our respective businesses." She takes a fortifying breath. "This is the third time that it's been turned off with no notice. And I'm pretty sure that was your henchman's doing."

Ben chooses to ignore the use of the word _henchman,_ because it surely implies something nefarious about not just Hux but him, too, if he were the kind of man to _have_ a henchman. He resents the association with villainy. 

But that's not the point.

"Look, we have a lot of specific needs in terms of the plumbing, and what they had in place here was seriously deficient, so we've had to make a lot of unanticipated updates, and -"

"That's all well and good, I know all about the importance of renovation, but I need to know when I'm going to have water and when I won't." Rey insists. 

"Look, you're not the only business in the game here! I've certainly never heard any complaints from Rose, and her water is off just as often as yours is, and she never - "

Rey takes a step closer to him. "Roses's schedule is totally different from mine, her business demands are totally different! Just because this doesn't inconvenience her doesn't mean it isn't a huge problem for me!"

Rey watches the muscle on the left side of his jaw tick.

"Well it's not my problem that you keep your business open so late that you can't manage late-night water shutoffs. I specifically told Hux to get a night crew for plumbing work that way it wouldn't get shut off in the middle of the day." His voice lowers nearly to a growl. "I thought it would help, but evidently you're so concerned about your own issues that you're not recognizing that effort I made on your behalf!"

Rey lets out a yell of frustration, her tone winding tighter. "THANK you, so much Ben, for _helping_ me without consulting me first! It's so great that you didn't bother saying a word before deciding what would work best. If you had, you'd know that twenty percent of my profit is made after 9 pm, therefore I most certainly _will_ be keeping later hours. But since you seem to have absolutely no desire to interact with me, I'm not surprised you haven't bothered to learn anything about the parlor and how it all WORKS!"

She stops, takes a deep breath, takes several breaths when she realizes she's panting. Anger is still rolling off her in a blazing corona, and Ben's whole body is tense. 

She's not sure how they ended up so close to each other, both leaning forward as they tried to make their point, but she tries to ride the wave of her indignation just a little longer. "Look. I have spent too many years sacrificing every safe, comfortable thing to make this business a reality. It was all I ever wanted and now, it's mine. The only thing I've ever had that I wanted, that I went after, and that I succeeded in getting." She grits her teeth, regrets for a moment that she's being quite so honest. "I've faced a million setbacks and gotten through every single one. And I will not let you, or your asshole of a best friend, jerk me around and make running my parlor harder." 

Ben's steely gaze, locked on her face, flits down to her sternum, still rising and falling rapidly as she tries to contains her sharp mess of emotions. 

"What?" She demands, as the seconds pass and he still hasn't said anything. 

He steps forward and places his hand on the desk just behind her, effectively caging her closer to his body. She gasps, and blinks up at him. His free hand comes up, cradling the sweaty side of her jaw and pulling her chin high, before leaning down with his mouth.

As though to kiss her.

He stops a millimeter away, breath warm, hesitating. He seems to question himself the same way she's questioning him, but then he pushes closer. 

And his lips feel every bit as plush as they had always looked. His mouth is warm, and wet, and body heat comes off of him like the simmering late August pavement. Despite the stifling air Rey doesn't mind anymore, and feels her forehead break out in fresh sweat that she knows has nothing to do with the weather.

She's confused, she's still furious, she's not done with this conversation. But her whole body throbs when his tongue touches the center of her lip.

He pauses for breath and she opens her eyes. He stares at her wildly, as though just realizing what they are doing, and she gives him a second to back away, to break the spell, if he wants. 

He doesn't. He's still there, hovering so close, so she leans up and grabs the skin of his jawline between her teeth. He lets out a small, low noise. She looks up to see his cheeks flush in embarrassment. 

Or maybe it isn't embarrassment. 

Rey decides the rest of the conversation can wait.

She cradles his head to keep him close, and his hands guide her hips to sit on the edge of the desk. She has to hop to make it up there, but once she's seated she doesn't have to crane so hard to reach his mouth, and he takes the chance to break away from her lips and plant open-mouthed kisses on her neck, leaving moisture wherever he touches.

He huffs his breath over the long line of her collarbone and she shivers, shudders at the achingly gentle touches of his mouth but the crushing grip of his hands on her hips, her thighs. She weaves her fingers into the waves of his dark hair, noting the tiny groan he makes as she tugs, and his lips reach the V of her tank top. Rey watches his throat move as he gulps, head bent so close to her chest. 

He glances up at her. Through her heavy breathing she mutters, "What are we doing?"

Those dark eyes search her hazel ones, and he shakes his head minutely, throat bobbing again, before he says, "I don't know. I- just wanted to. _Want_ to." His eyes have lost some of their ire, looking soft and uncertain. "Is that okay?"

She finds herself nodding, and he moves again, hands sliding to her back, thumb grazing the outside of her breast. She whimpers, and he repeats the motion, pressing his thumb in a little harder, rubbing in small circles, and she squirms, pulling her legs out from where he's pinned them to the desk and wrapping them around him. He makes a choking sound as his hips drift within inches of hers, and he tugs her to the end of the desk, so that her pelvis and his are aligned. She's wearing a rare dress, and he's wearing tapered gray linen pants, so between her underwear and his thin fabric, not much stands in the way of where there bodies touch.

She feels how hard he is, feels the heat emanating there as it does from the rest of him, and she sighs at the feeling. 

He presses even closer, and Rey's underwear slides with the motion. She is very, very wet. 

He's staring down at where they align, and she squeezes him against her with all the force she can muster.

He slides his hips away and back into her the tiniest fraction. Her legs loosen, allowing him more space to thrust towards her. His closeness, his warmth, Rey can't help but imagine what it would be like if he were inside her, giving that warmth right to her core, her arousal and his melding to create a frantic slide in and out of her. 

Instead she's left with this tease, the drag of her underwear against her skin creating not quite enough friction. Her breath gusts out of her each time their bodies meet, and she pulls on his shirt so that he folds back down towards her. 

Her free arm snakes under his shirt, trailing her fingers over his abdomen, not surprised to find soft skin, but startled by the hard muscle it sheathes. Her palm presses to the bump of one of his muscles, and she thinks back to that day she watched him change a lightbulb. Her fingers wander to that line of muscle curving above his hip. The end of that line, of course, leads straight between his legs, and her hand alights on the button fly of his pants. He groans, low and soft, the sound vibrating from his chest into hers, and he must decide it's time to reciprocate.

His hand delves right into her underwear, at an odd angle so he doesn't interfere with where their bodies continue to grind. He reaches one long finger out and ghosts it over her clit, and Rey feels a surge of want and pleasure and arches backwards.

Suddenly she needs this, and she needs it _now_.

His finger moves back and forth over the tiny bud, and Rey feels reduced to the chaos of feeling between her legs, everything singularly focused on one part of her body.

She's never felt so consumed by someone's touch. So consumed that it takes her a moment to realize she's speaking, a soft cry of "Please, please, Ben _please_...." and some part of her probably ought to be embarrassed but instead she only cares about this man and the planes of his face and the intensity in his eyes as he looks at her.

"I've got you," he murmurs, "I've got you, please, just breathe Rey, ok? Breathe."

She listens, takes a few long, shaky breaths even as his hips speed up, as he pushes harder against her, as one finger on her becomes two and he presses faster circles against her cunt. 

She feels her body curling in, like a star imploding into itself. The pressure feels like it might crush her when finally, finally, it all washes away. It starts at her center and then rushes into the rest of her body. Her elbow gives out and she lies back, Ben going still to watch her ride the pulse of pleasure for a moment before he starts pumping his hips again, his eyes never leaving her face, and Rey sits up to reach under his shirt again, to comb her fingers through the hair, and she rolls her hips in time with his. His breath comes in faster, louder, larger gulps, but his face looks pained, and so she tightens her legs where they've gone slack and murmurs, "Let go, Ben."

Her words are the catalyst, and he suddenly locks up, mouth dropping open, lower jaw working as he comes. Rey can't see it, can't feel it, but she feels the muscles of his torso clench and relax a few times before his breathing steadies, before he's suddenly leaning down to kiss her again, softer, slower kisses this time. She touches his hair again, and she doesn't think she's imagining it when he presses up into her hand. 

As the haze of lust slowly drops away, Rey starts to feel reailty set in. Her soaked underwear and the wet mark they've left on the front of his pants. His hair gone wild from the way she palmed it. Her dress askew, one of her breasts nearly exposed, her nipples poking through. 

They look debauched, and still he stares down at her, but when she meets his gaze, his eyes dart away, and she says the only thing she can think of. "Is hate sex normally your thing?"

He has the grace to chuckle, but his face grows serious again, somber. "I don't hate you."

"You don't?" She whispers, trying to read him, suss out if he's telling the truth. 

He just shakes his head silently, eyes drifting over her until he meets her gaze again.

"What?"

"I....He wouldn't want me telling you this, but Hux's dad is sick. Like, really sick. And he's trying to manage taking care of his family with everything he has going on here. He's really determined, not to let his work fall by the wayside no matter how much I tell him to take the time he needs. I'm not surprised he's forgetting to tell you what's going on, or that he's a jerk whenever you point something out to him. His head's not in the game."

Rey nods.

"I should have taken over the plumbing management weeks ago." Ben admits, and Rey can see the weariness in the lines of his body, a feeling she knows well. The pressure of starting a business, of managing the people that work with you, of wondering desperately if it might be a success.

Of what the hell you'll do if it isn't.

Rey's known a lot of stress in her life, but those fears are like nothing else.

He pulls his phone from his pocket and eases down into a chair nearby, and Rey takes that as her cue to adjust her dress, fruitlessly tugging on her underwear to try and make it more comfortable. She swipes the sweat off the back of her neck and sits up, running her hands through her hair. 

"Hey man, you got a minute?" Ben's voice sounds almost...gentle. "Yeah, I just wanted to let you know I think I'm gonna start coming into the tasting room a little earlier in the day from now on. And I figured we could shift things around a little so I could take over the plumbing stuff, since the timing works out." He glances up at Rey and she offers a small smile. "Yeah, it's no big deal. I'll email you with all the details tomorrow. Kay. Bye."

His screen goes dark and throws them both into near blackness. "Thank you." Rey mutters, and she just barely sees him nod.

She takes a breath. "Look, I still don't totally know why we just- "

"I really don't want to talk about it." Ben rushes out, then clears his throat. "If that's okay."

Her stomach twists.

_Does he regret it? Is he wishing he had never touched her? _

"Yeah okay." 

He gets up then, approaches the door, and she whispers, "Sorry about your pants. I didn't mean to ...mess them up, or whatever you want to call it." She's glad it's dark, so he can't see her face burning.

"It's..." he looks down, "it's not all from you." He sounds pained, as he reaches down and adjusts himself.

Rey furrows her brow. "Wha...Oh, right.'

"Yep."

"Ok, then we should probably get out of here, and just..."

"Yeah, see you around."

He follows her down the stairs and they part at the bottom, Ben heading for his old 4Runner and Rey walking back to the parlor to grab her things. 

She stares at the dishes in the sink, and resolves to come in early tomorrow to get things shaped up.

She slides into bed, after taking a cool shower. As she stares up at the ceiling, counting the waves, it's not just her exhaustion she feels in her limbs, it's that ease that only a good orgasm can bring her.

But this is...different. She's not sure she's ever felt something this powerful. Her muscles feel so loose she imagines she could do the splits if she tried. And when she finally falls asleep, it's heavier, deeper, not like the featherlight sleep she developed in her teens and never quite got over.

Across town, Ben falls into his own rare dreamless sleep, finally free from every last worry about First Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty plotless chapter, but when has smut ever contributed to the story or the character development??!?
> 
> *thinks of at least a dozen fics where the things said and done during sex utterly contribute to the advancement of the story's themes*
> 
> ANYWAYS
> 
> Now that we have really set the stage, we can finally get up to all sorts of nonsense with these two. More to come soon. Would love to hear what you think :)


	4. Making the Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She startles. A dark gaze is drilling into her from nearby.
> 
> Ben, staring at her through their window. Not staring into the madness of the room, at all the laughing, chatting customers, but right at her.
> 
> And his arms are crossed over his chest. And Rey can practically see the daggers shooting out from his eyes. He beckons her with his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings everyone! Happy Black Friday to my American readers. Mother SevenBetter reminds you to be fiscally responsible in spite of all the deals.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the new chapter. Writing smut late at night in your parents' home is an odd experience I hope never to replicate!
> 
> Would love to hear your feedback.

"All-You-Can-Treat" proves to be a huge success. All of Rey's regulars, plus friends and random passers-by, show up to drown themselves in ice cream. All the ice cream they desire, for $15. It's mid-summer, and Rey's ambitious plan to roll out an all-new flavor list for the second half of the season means all their current product needs to be eaten, to make space for Peach Pleasure and Sweet Cream Cinnamon Chili, and everything else Rey has dreamt up, tested, and perfected over the past year. 

The store is teeming with friends, as Rey prefers calling them, rather than "customers." Poe is bopping around taking pictures for their Instagram, Finn is scooping furiously, and she's handling the register and the occasional purchases from the pastry case.

Three hours pass before Rey finally looks up, takes a breath, and glances around the room to be sure everyone is happy and satisfied. Some people are on their fourth scoop and the supply of ice cream is finally down to about thirty percent, which is frankly more than Rey expected to sell in the course of a single-day event. 

She pulls off her Irresistible baseball cap, revealing the baby hairs that have slowly escaped from her braid over the course of the day, and presses her forearm to her slightly sweaty brow.

Before she even gets the hat back on, she startles. A dark gaze is drilling into her from nearby.

Ben, staring at her through their window. Not staring into the madness of the room, at all the laughing, chatting customers, but right at her.

And his arms are crossed over his chest. And Rey can practically see the daggers shooting out from his eyes. He beckons her with his hand, and she shakes her head. 

_What the hell is he thinking? I can't step out right now._

But he gestures more insistently, and she shakes her head more emphatically, using her own hand to sweep grandly over the room as if to say, _see what i'm dealing with here?_

He shakes his head like he doesn't accept that. For a brief moment, Rey's heart begins to pound. _Is this about... last night?_ But when she really considers it, it assuages her anxiety. He would never be stupid enough to want to discuss that out in the open, in the middle of the day. 

He points down towards the floor, right next to him, as one would a child who won't come when they're called.

_Who the fuck does he think he is?_

Regardless of whatever he wants from her, she's going over there just to tell him off. 

"Rose?" Rey calls, and Rose looks up from where she's replenishing the waiting stack of waffle cones. "Cover the register for me, please." Rey hands off her apron to her friend, who without a word sallies over to help.

Then she marches out the front door, soft smile still on for the sake of her customers. It slides off as she passes the threshold of First Order.

"I'm incredibly busy, what do you want?" She practically yells as she enters, and he's already looking at her, his arms still crossed.

"What the hell is going on over there?" He barks, his finger that was previously pointed at the floor is now directed at the window. 

"All-You-Can-Treat, to help finish off the rest of the summer product before I roll out my new flavors."

"The whole fucking sidewalk is crawling with dogs and snot-nosed little kids."

Rey blinks, then nods slowly at him, with maximum condescension. "Yes, Ben. I don't know if you've noticed, but dogs and children are frequent at an _ice cream parlor_. The dairy free Puppy Cone really snags all those new pet parents." 

Her droll voice appears to only anger him further. "And you didn't think to let us know that you'd be taking over the entire area for the full day?"

"No, to be perfectly honest I didn't think many people would like the idea, so I didn't anticipate the store being so overrun."

He rolls his eyes, leaning his head back. "Oh would you please stop it with all this false modesty shit? You're always acting like you don't think anything there will be a success and then it always is, and your fake surprise is getting pretty fucking sickening to watch."

Rey physically steps back, affronted. He's been difficult, but what he just said is...beyond that. "I'm sorry, did I just hear those words from the man who had his hand up my dress last night?"

He stiffens and his head whips around, assuring they're alone. "I made it very clear I didn't want to talk about that."

"Well, we're going to, if you think it's appropriate to speak to me this way." There's a deadly calm in her voice. 

He says nothing, just keeps scowling at her, and she knows she should take the high road, knows she shouldn't sink to his level.

But there's a stinging in her chest, that he could want to kiss her one minute and want to insult her the next. 

_Fuck the high road._

"I'm sorry that starting your business next to a thriving store is such an inconvenience for you." She drawls. "Why don't you shut the water off? That way I won't have any clean scoops, and then no one will come, and my parlor will be quiet and easier for you to handle!"

He slams a fist down on a high top table. "Would you get over the fucking water thing? I apologized, _and_ I've re-scheduled them all to early in the morning."

Sure, they solved one problem last night. But now here he is, creating a new one, for no good reason. 

"It's not about the _water,_ Ben." She sighs, exasperated. "It's about the fact that everything, small things and big things and unimportant things, they all seem to piss you off. Everything does. And here's some advice from someone who already got their business off the ground. You have to learn to let things go. If everything upsets you as much as it seems to, trying to keep a business running, when things are going to go wrong all the time, is going to be impossible for you. You have to, I don't know, learn when to talk yourself down." 

He's silent for a moment, staring at her, fists still clenched, then mutters, "I don't need your fucking advice."

"Well then prove to me you can do it! Talk yourself down, take a breather, get over the fact that my fucking ICE CREAM STORE is full of screaming children and figure your shit out!"

Rey is fully yelling by the end, and couldn't be more grateful for the cacophony of noise inside Irresistible, muffling their argument.

He takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose, and Rey sees the sweat in the armpits and on the back of his shirt. She gears up for him to start screaming again, but like so many other times, his demeanor turns on a dime. He's still and silent for a long time. 

"Ben," she says softer, and he peers at her from behind his hand after a moment, "why are you upset that the shop is so busy? Just tell me."

He leans against the high top table, reaching to curl his hands around the edge, and Rey forces her eyes away from the long stretch of his fingers, and the way his posture makes his arm muscles stand out.

"Tonight is our press night." He says in a low rumble, staring down at the wood grain. "I've got five journalists, four of which are food and drink columnists, coming out to try what we have on tap, as well as sample our small plates menu."

Rey glances around for the first time since marching in here, and notices suddenly that the setup appears done. Tables, high stools with brass legs, one pool table and the long, gleaming oak bar. There are vintage photographs of Coruscant Beach on the wall, a huge framed mirror hung by the bathrooms has the signature of every person who has ever worked for First Order. Rey can see a stack of menus tucked up behind the bar.

"Okay," Rey says, crossing her arms, "and?"

He glares at her, seems annoyed that he has to keep justifying his anger.

She thinks of him last night, refusing to talk about it after they were finished.

_He never wants to explain himself._

"I'm trying to project this, like, cool, mid-twenties, aloof image. It's what Phasma recommended, she said it's the 'aesthetic that will most appeal to our target audience.'" He sighs, and it turns into another intentional long deep breath. "These journalists are so fucking pretentious, so fucking picky. What they say about this place has a huge impact on whether we sink or swim. Everything has to be perfect."

When he looks at her again, it's a little less openly hostile. "And then I show up here, all ready to prepare for the evening, just waiting on Hux and our chef, to see this." He gestures through the window again. "I can't imagine that dog barking, the bell you have hanging over the door, the moms demanding that their children wipe off their sticky hands, or the strollers getting in the way of my entrance will really inspire the mood I am aiming for."

Rey stares at him for a long moment. She gets it, his reasoning is sound.

His reactions aren't.

She could tell him that. But what he said earlier has some truth to it. She _shouldn't_ be giving him advice.

Rey's spent her life around dysfunctional people, and she's learned that trying to fix them only leads to further disappointment, when they never change. 

She steps closer so that he can hear her lower voice. "Well it sucks that these two things ended up happening the same day." He nods. "The crowd should die down as we get into the evening, but if it doesn't, I'm not going to do anything differently. I have ice cream to sell."

She says it firmly but not unkindly, and he holds her gaze, nodding stiffly. "Good luck with the press." She tells him. There's a compliment, about how nicely this place came together, waiting on the tip of her tongue.

But she remembers that soft way he had looked at her in the upstairs office, right after he came down from his orgasm and leaned to kiss her again. And now, how not a shred of that softness remains in his eyes. 

She doesn't offer the compliment. 

She turns away and returns to her shop, letting the happy madness wash over her. She shifts gears and relishes each time someone makes her laugh, every kind comment they offer about the ice cream or thanks for being dog-friendly. She forces herself to really _feel_ each time she smiles.

She lets all that work inside her and root out all the ugliness from their fight. Connecting with people here, over something she has made. 

Around 7 p.m., she sees five people in dark, trendy outfits entering First Order one by one. The sidewalk is still teeming with her customers...the crowd hadn't died down around dinner. But Rey makes sure there are no strollers left abandoned on the sidewalk. She moves the water bowls left ouf for dogs over to the Tico's side of her storefront. She pushes two of her outdoor tables a little further away from First Order's doorway.

All five critics make it in his door without any fuss, and she sees them glancing around. Rey can practically taste Ben's nervousness as he walks into view through the window, and holds his hand out to shake. 

She shakes her head minutely at him, catalogs all the things he's made her feel in the last twenty-four hours. 

She likes safe, stable, predictable people. It's why Finn's her business partner, why Rose is her best friend. She doesn't need someone to give her emotional whiplash. She doesn't need someone to give her the best orgasm of her life but insult her character and her success. 

Rey's spent a lifetime living on only what she needs. So she resolves to stay away from him. It's an easy choice. 

\-------

_ **Four Days Later** _

It's after close, and she's going through the special orders filing box, comparing order forms to their master calendar, pencilling in days by which Finn needs to have a mock-up done or she needs to finalize a custom flavor for a certain event. Her head is spinning.

She never thought she'd be overwhelmed by the number of orders, but she's coming to realize that success can be almost as stressful as starting out.

But the one thing, the biggest thing, was always the money. And she doesn't have to worry about that anymore. She hasn't quite yet processed how that feels, but she's slowly training herself not to only look at grocery store items with a yellow sale tag jutting from the shelf. Full-price boxed mac and cheese feels good.

But all the profit in the world can't mitigate how she feels right now. Petrified about satisfying all these private customers, worried that they've taken on too many special orders and might neglect the everyday operations of the parlor, worried for how things might change as the tourist season wanes in mid-September. She's been sleeping feather-light again, waking up at the slightest provocation, all this anxiety about her business thrumming under her skin even when she's unconscious.

For the past few days she's had a constant, low-grade headache and several persistent neck cramps. She's a little distracted, a little impatient.

She sighs, pushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and flips over to the next month, scanning the frighteningly full array of deadlines. 

\-------

Ben's entire body is screaming at him to sit down, but they polished the brass legs on all the stools, and the polish smells so heinous that he took each stool out back to air out overnight before he lets them back in. Sitting on the empty casks is proving terrible for his back, so instead he gathers the paperwork in need of his signature, sets it on a high top table, and leans on it. 

He's meticulous, reading everything over, but when he's halfway through he pauses to stretch his arms across his chest and shake out his legs. 

That's when he notices her through the window. Poring over a huge wall calendar, pulling manila folders out of a box, seemingly comparing dates, then putting them back.

She looks frazzled. Eyes over wide and neck craned forward at what must be an uncomfortable angle. Her fingers flick through the filing tabs in her box.

He remembers the feeling of those fingers tracing through his hair, sending tingles along his scalp. 

He looks away.

He's still not sure what came over him in the office the last week.

Her hair was wild, her face even wilder, and she pulsed with anger. As they fought, drifting closer and closer to each other, he couldn't help being distracted by the sight of her in a dress. She never wore dresses, he'd seen her through the window enough times to know, and despite her propensity for pants her legs were tanned and smooth and suddenly he wanted to kiss that scowl right off her face, kiss her until the same want that was pulsing through him might get passed on to her, too.

So he did.

But that was over now, he reminds himself. He felt a hot burn of shame after he came completely untouched, rutting against her. Just the thought of her body, brought to life by her anger, was enough to get him off. 

He still felt that shame when he instigated their second fight, earlier this week. He felt a powerful need to create distance between himself and this _stranger,_ around whom he found himself vulnerable again and again. From how the conversation ended, he knows he's pushed her away. He won't let it happen again.

He grits his teeth. When he looks at her through the window he's so annoyed by her constant smiles and twinkly waving hand, the way she'll hold up the line in her own shop because she's busy doting on children or chatting with a parent. She's foolish, and naive, and...

Beautiful.

She's nothing like him, and her business made it.

That scares him. And makes him angry. Hard work, a good product, and a careful business model used to be enough. Charisma wasn't always an essential part of building something successful. Personal attractiveness wasn't a prerequisite to people wanting to walk in the door. Charm didn't need to be on your resume. But now in this hyper-visual social media age, everyone expects the business owner to seem like their best friend. To give them not just a product, but an image to go with it.

That's not something Ben can do. Not something he wants to do. He's focused, and serious. And he wants that to be enough.

He realizes he's read the first page of this contract four times over and he still isn't processing it. 

_Time to head home._

Before he can pack up the door to First Order creaks open.

Rey is flying through it, and before he can get out more than an incomplete, "Wha-" she is on him, pressing him against the nearest wall, stretching up on her toes to reach his face. Both her hands are planted on his chest and she stares at him for half a second before crashing her mouth into his, sucking at his lips for a moment til he catches up and slides hands into her hair, groaning into her mouth and grabbing her ass, hauling her up his body to make it easier for them to kiss. 

Memories of that night in the office come flooding back to him. None of the shame, but all of the lust. He doesn't think he can take another round without getting to touch her, properly this time. He feels a sense of desperation in her kiss, and he thinks back to all those order forms packed into her filing box, to the stress that lined her face.

Ben tears himself away from her mouth and growls, "Hold on."

He stalks to the front and flips the switch, plunging them into darkness, only the light from a streetlamp throwing long gray shadows across the room. 

She leans back into the wall where he had been pressed, palms flat against the hunter green paint. 

"How was the press night?"

He walks all the way to her, tilts his chin down as she tilts hers up, and stares at her for a few long seconds. "Good, I think they liked it."

She nods. "Okay, good."

"Just gotta wait for the write-ups now."

They stay there, looking at each other for a moment, and he can still see whatever's inside that order box is racing through her mind. 

She gasps in surprise when he lifts her up and plants her on the high top, the table wobbling the tiniest bit as she lands, but he's right there again, pressing closer, and she opens her legs to him. He kisses her, matching her urgency from before. 

He wants to touch her properly this time.

He traces the backs of his fingers from her throat down to her chest. He slides two fingers below the neckline of her t-shirt, feels the stretchy band of fabric from her sports bra, and dips in. Two fingers run parallel on either side of one of her nipples, and she moans into his mouth.

He pinches harder and she goes silent, mouth falling open. They just breathe together, mouths close, as he reaches into her shirt with his other hand, giving attention to both breasts, which causes her to arch into his hands and gasp.

"Ben please," she whispers, so rushed it sounds like all one word, and all he can do is nod, pull his hands away, but only to pop the button on her worn jeans.

She lies back on the long, narrow table and lifts her hips, helping as he drags them down her legs, and she's the one who pushes her underwear after them. Ben gathers them in his hold and drags it all off, her work boots, shoes, socks, everything in one jerky go. 

She stares up at him from the table, arms over her head, and she whispers, "Not fair," as she wiggles her bare hips.

Ben stares at her for a long moment, then reaches back to drag his t-shirt over his head. "Better?" He asks, and her eyes roam his torso, Finally, she nods.

He palms her legs slowly, dragging his hands over all that tanned skin he knew he'd find. Holding her legs aloft causes her quads to flex, and he marvels at her litheness, at how thin she is and yet how muscular, like a distance runner. He leans down to kiss the inside of one knee and her breath stops. 

He keeps his lips there, letting her feel the heat of his breath as one hand draws closer and closer to her center. Then he's dragging his fingers through her folds, teasing her, coming just close enough to her clit and then turning back towards her entrance. She's whining, trying to lift and cant her hips where she wants him to go.

He won't have it, sticking exactly to what he intended to do: to drive her wild, but not yet give her what she wants. He leans over to kiss the other knee while his fingers keep playing. 

He's painfully hard, his dick pressing against the edge of the table, and it's agonizing but also a relief to have any pressure on it at all, even if it isn't the type of pressure he wants. He reaches one hand down to palm himself, briefly, and Rey watches his hand.

"Use your mouth on me and I'll do the same," she offers. 

"Only if you play with my hair again," Ben barters. 

She nods. "You've got yourself a deal."

And he plunges down, going full throttle from the moment his tongue touches her core, tracing tight circles around her clit before pressing long, flat strokes from her entrance upwards, alternating any time the noises she makes get a little too quiet. 

She upholds her end of the promise, rasping her nails along his scalp, taking a fistful of his hair and pulling in time to the licks he laves on her. It's so good, having his hair messed with, it's like an itch he can't scratch for himself, and he feels like he's going insane as he gets harder, straining at the front of his jeans and already leaking from the end. 

He lifts his mouth away just long enough to catch her eye, and then slides two long fingers into her. She takes one gusty breath, still staring at him, and circles her hips against his hand. He gulps, adding his thumb to her clit, and allows her to establish a rhythm she likes, and watches as together they work her higher and higher, her hands scrambling for purchase against the table, and he feels from the inside as her body tenses, as it bears down, and then, the flutters as her release takes control. She seizes up, lets out one sharp, short cry, and then goes silent. 

Her body goes to jell-o as she comes down. Her face looks serene, and Ben tries to focus there and not on the way her body is still twitching against his fingers, tries not to imagine how that would feel if his cock were inside her. 

He's already come in his pants once with her, he doesn't need it to happen again.

But before he can talk himself down much more she's sitting up, grabbing his torso and ordering, "Lean back." 

He does, his spine meeting an oak pillar and one sweaty hand slips against the wood.

Rey wastes no time taking him right out of his pants and palming him, rough and dry, and he hisses. It's just on the edge of too much. Before he can verbalize that, Rey is licking down the length of him, circling the head, teasing him precisely the way he had done to her. He swears, knocking his head a little as he tips it back, and clenches his hands at his sides to prevent himself from urging her down, urging her to take more of him as he so desperately desires.

But there's no need, because a moment later she's sucking him deeper him in one slick motion and hollowing out her cheeks, creating just the right amount of suction and _oh fuck,_ Ben knows he isn't gonna last long. He doesn't have the headspace to warn her or even to care, because nothing in his life has felt this damn good.

_Why?_ He wants to ask her, _Why are we doing this again, when the first time ended so badly? And I've only made it worse since then?_

_ Just because it feels good?_

She circles one hand around his base and squeezes, rougher than the feel of her mouth, Her other reaches underneath and so, so gently cups his sac in her hand, drawing it forward and away from his body as though to say they're hers now, and he'd gladly give them to her as a white wall of pleasure slams into him, as his orgasm slams out of him. His torso tenses hard against Rey's forehead and those sharp hazel eyes look up at him. She handles it, swallows all of him down, waits until he isn't breathing so hard to ease her mouth off of him. 

He's useless, and she must be able to tell because she tucks him carefully back into his jeans, redoes the zipper, closes the button. Before she can back away to pick up her pants he pulls her close, breathing finally even enough to lean down and kiss her, long and slow. A kiss of thanks for what she'd just done to him. A kiss as ending punctuation for what he did to her. 

When he finally pulls back, her mascara is smudged under her eyes with sweat and she's still naked from the waist down. It takes him almost no time to slide his shirt on again, so he unties the laces on her boots and lays them out for her to put on. She murmurs her thanks and straightens, and he expects to hear about how stressful her evening has been, or that deadline she's so concerned about meeting.

She doesn't even meet his eye, just mumbles. "Thanks. I needed that." He shifts on his feet, silent. "See you tomorrow."

She wait there, facing the door, until he nods, and mumbles, "Yeah." And just like that she's gone, walking slowly out the door and into the ice cream parlor.

She grabs a backpack from behind the counter, turns off her lights, locks up and walks off, into the night. Ben couldn't be more awake now, and yet, when he tries again he's unable to finish his paperwork. 

For some reason, it's uncomfortable to realize he's not the only one pulling back and pushing away.

\-------

Saturday afternoon, Rey leaves Finn alone at the parlor and heads out to the beach for her and Rose's weekly beer. She can see Rose already down on the sand, her elbow balanced on the cooler. 

Rose turns and smiles as Rey shuffles down the wooden boardwalk and then embarks onto the sand. "Hey, lady."

"How are you?" Rey asks.

"Oh, you know. Your average day." Rose says, and flips open the cooler, extracting two drinks, Rose uses the bottle opener in the bottom of her flip-flop to yank the caps off. Those shoes were a birthday gift from Finn. Rey had never seen Rose smile so big as when she pulled them out of the box.

Rey takes a long pull of her beer and lays back in the sand, staring at the cloudless sky. 

"What were you yelling about this morning?" Rey asks, and peers at Rose out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh," Rose says, with a dramatic sigh, "Jeff and I were having words."

"You had words? With your veggie guy?"

"Yes!" Rose says, and the dam inside her, that was helping to contain her annoyance, clearly breaks. "I had words with him about the eggplant. I told him that with how much of his product I purchase, he really should be offering me the best from every crop, because that's what I deserve. But he tried to argue that those eggplants were the best from his crop, but I know for a fact that's not true because when I passed his stall at the Farmer's Market last weekend, he had the most glorious eggplants I had ever seen, and yet the crate he brought me this morning was...certainly _not_ glorious. Too small, too skinny, so many scrape marks. The ones at the market were huge and robust and shiny and perfect, and if I can't get my hands on those, he might as well not sell me any at all."

Rey can't help the smile that creeps across her face, and Rose huffs in annoyance, before demanding, "What?"

"I'm sorry," Rey offers, with a suppressed chuckle, "sorry. It's just, in today's climate, it's hard to take anyone's discussion of actual eggplant seriously. With the eggplant emoji such a popular cultural symbol." A giggle escapes from her again.

Rose rolls her eyes. But a grin breaks out across her face, too. Her tone drips with sarcasm. "As a produce store owner, I don't have the luxury of joking about penis-shaped foods, Miss Johnson. Eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, bananas. I take them all very seriously." 

"Do you?" Rey mutters around a laugh.

"Very. Seriously." Rose's fake-somber face twitches until she can contain it no longer, and she laughs, too.

"Speaking of which, have you had much of the eggplant emoji lately?" Rey probes, and turns on her side, letting the warm sand seep into her clothes after hours in the chilly parlor.

Rose...blushes. Rose is a beam of sunshine, and the sweetest person on the planet, but she's also very frank and hard to embarrass, which means she doesn't normally react this way. So Rey just watches her, and keeps quiet.

"Well, I've been...No. The short answer is no, there is no eggplant emoji in my life at the moment."

"What's the long answer?"

Rose shifts around, then sighs. "The long answer is that there's a certain eggplant, attached to a certain person, who I really like, but I have yet to approach this man and his eggplant about if he would like to spend time with me and my...peach?"

"Peach?"

"Isn't the peach emoji supposed to be the vagina?" Rose muses.

"I...don't know. I guess I always thought it was supposed to be a butt. It's so round. And there's the cleft."

"But if it isn't the peach then what other emoji would the vagina be?"

Rey thinks for a minute, even goes as far to open a text to Rose and scroll through all the symbols. "I'm not sure."

"Leave it to the patriarchy to clearly decide on a penis-metaphor emoji but refuse to give us one for the vagina." Rose mutters. Rey bursts out laughing, rolling in the sand as Rose continues to add to her argument. "Maybe the cat emoji? Since it's the closest to the word 'pussy?'"

Rey shakes her head. "No. That's degrading to Bebe. The cat emoji even looks like Bebe. I would never insult him that way."

"To be compared to a vagina is awesome, not insulting." Rose argues, and Rey concedes the point to her, and they both pause for a few sips of beer.

"So who's this mystery eggplant man?" Rey probes, and Rose looks bashful again, shrugging.

"I uh, I don't think I'm really ready to talk about it yet. But hopefully I will be. Soon." Rose explains, and Rey nods, reaching out to pat her hand.

It's one of her favorite parts of their friendship, maybe the best part, that they don't push each other. Rose never dug for more information about Rey's past before Rey was ready to offer it, and they both have alluded to secrets and frustrations and mistakes without the other ever demanding to hear the whole story, or making judgments when they finally do. It makes Rey feel safe.

"Any eggplant emoji in your life, Rey?"

Blessedly, Rose is watching some far-off surfers. Rey can't imagine that admitting her tryst -okay fine, two trysts- with Ben is a smart idea.

"Oh, uh, nope. No eggplant. It's as dusty and empty as a Victorian attic down there," Rey says, deciding humor is her best defense, and Rose nearly chokes on her beer as giggles seize control of her.

"If only there were a dusty Victorian attic emoji." Rose mutters, and Rey reaches out to clink her bottle against her friend's.

In reality, Rey would probably describe her attic as sparsely decorated but well-cared for, at this particular juncture. Ben knows what he's doing.

But Rose, even with her minimal interest in being judgy, would probably raise a critical eyebrow if Rey admitted the stubborn asshole next door was the one who has twice now... spruced Rey's attic.

To be honest, Rey should probably be raising that critical eyebrow at herself. What the hell was she thinking, seeking out this man she can't stand? Desperate to touch him, desperate for him to touch her? Knowing he's stubborn, and petty and unpredictable, yet her body throbbing when she catches sight of his hands?

The first time she can write off as an anomaly. He initiated.

The second time, _she_ made the choice_. _For all she knows, if she hadn't stormed into First Order, they might never have touched each other again.

She stomps down that line of questioning. She has enough to handle right now. She's barely keeping up. Internally addressing the topic of her stress sex with Ben Solo can stay on the back burner, at least until they're well into autumn and things slow down a bit. 

Before she can safely swerve the conversation to a new topic, more footsteps can be heard on the walkway. They both turn to see Phasma, one hand shading her eyes, walking right towards them. She looks nervous and scared. She raises her hand in greeting and they both wave back.

"Are you expecting her?" Rose mutters under her breath.

"No."


	5. Shatter It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #WhyDidPhasmaLookNervous2k19

"Hi! Am I, uh, interrupting anything...important?" Phasma calls out, tentative.

Rey is too paralyzed by anxiety to respond, her heart thundering. She can only pray she's kept it off her face.

Rose, perfect flower of a human being that she is, grins brightly and shrugs.

"Nah. Just discussing trials and tribulations of small business owners. Want a beer?"

Phasma laughs as she draws closer to them, and accepts it gratefully, taking a long sip. "Yep, I definitely know all about that. Ben loves to talk about it. That man should have been granted a second Master's degree in complaining."

Rose giggles and Rey cracks a small smile.

_Don't be ridiculous. There's no way that's why Phasma seems so nervous. She would never say something in front of Rose._

At least Rey prays that's the case.

Phasma holds her beer, free hand in her pocket, awkwardly looming over where they both sit. Rey reaches out with a suddenly sweaty palm and folds out another corner of their beach blanket. She gestures for Phasma to sit, feeling a little relieved when they are all on eye level again.

"So what's up?" Rey asks, hoping the others can't detect the shake in her voice. 

Phasma's face sobers, and she looks hesitant. "I um, I have sort of a favor to ask."

Rey blinks. "Of me?" 

_It would be great if you could do me a favor and stop fucking my boss. It's only made him more cantankerous._

Absurd. Rey has to suppress a hysterical giggle at the thought of Phasma uttering that. But underneath it, she feels a wash of relief. A favor, she can handle.

Do they need her to close down the shop for a day because the water will be off for a full 24 hours?

Are they asking her permission to brick over the window so that Solo won't be forced to catch random glances of her anymore?

Is her decor simply too whimsical and they want her to take down the pom pom streamers outside so their little business strip can be taken more seriously? 

If it's the last one, Rey might take them down, but she'll strangle Ben with them in the process.

Instead, what Phasma asks stuns her.

"A favor to ask of both of you." Phasma clarifies, her clear, crystalline blue eyes darting between them.

Now Rey's really surprised.

"Tell us more." Rose gently encourages.

"Armie's dad is dying." Phasma practically whispers, and Rey's stomach sinks, remembering Ben's somber expression as he told her this back in the office.

"He's been sick for a while, but this past weekend he experienced some complications and...they really don't think he'll make it much longer."

Rose reaches a hand to pat Phasma's elbow, and she swallows hard before she continues speaking. 

"So, due to this, Armie and I are moving the wedding date up. Way up."

They're both stunned into silence.

Rey breaks first. "Wait, you guys are engaged?"

Rose waves her hand out, "No, rewind even further. You and Hux are together?"

Phasma blushes, as though it's a secret, which evidently it isn't.

"Uh, yeah. We both feel strongly about keeping our personal and professional lives separate. So we keep it on the down low when we're here."

"I'll say." Rey agrees. It's so _down low_ it's practically on the ground. In a dark room. Where no one can see it.

Rey decides she'll chew on this new piece of information later, when she's alone and won't have to mask her shock anymore. She repeats, "So you're moving the wedding date up. Way up."

Phasma clears her throat. "Yep. Like, three weeks from now, up." 

Rey whistles lowly, and Phasma continues, "It's really, really important to Hux that his family all be there, and I don't want him to be freshly grieving on such a happy day. His dad desperately wants all the kids to be settled before he passes away, and I think he sees this as the last big hurdle. All the other kids have good jobs, stable families. I want him to die with a sense of peace. I want him to feel proud as he watches his son start the next phase of his life. And I want Armie to know that I care more about all the important people being there than I do having some big lavish event that we won't care about in ten years."

It's such a deluge of tender, determined information that Rey and Rose blink for a moment, processing. A few slow, small tears have leaked from the corners of Phasma's eyes, and she reaches up with her sleeve to swipe them away. 

Rose chimes in. "That's... very admirable. It must be so much work. Are you scrambling to rearrange everything?"

Phasma nods and takes an eons-long pull from her beer. "The venue had a cancellation that they agreed to let us take at no extra cost. Their caterer is on-site and can handle the dinner, but the menu will be slightly different. A lot of it's been going pretty smoothly, but...a few things haven't. Which is why I'm here to ask for this favor."

"If you need planning help, Rey's a whiz. I've never seen someone organize so much information so perfectly." Rose says, gesturing over at her friend.

"Thanks, Rose." Rey jostles her tiny friend with her elbow. 

"Though that may come in handy, that's not exactly what I was looking for." Phasma licks her lips. "I was hoping you could become my baker and florist for the night."

They both stare. Phasma scrambles to continue.

"We came in under budget during the original planning, so I have some extra cash on top of the refunds we got from the current baker and florist. I lost two deposits, but neither of them can make the earlier date happen so this is the only way. I know this is incredibly last minute, but...if you think you can do it, you could either draw up an estimate and we can discuss it, or I can tell you how much I have and we can see what you guys could do within that budget."

The sun is just beginning to set, and the three of them are bathed in the orange glow.

Rose looks at Rey, and Rey looks at Rose.

Phasma's eyes dart nervously.

Rey speaks after a moment of telepathic communication, certain Rose will agree. "Neither."

"Neither?" Phasma repeats, looking stricken.

"We'll do neither. What we will do is let you plan for the flowers and cake and treats you want, whatever we can achieve in the time frame. And once we have that all set, we'll take whatever budget you had previously set aside for these two things and split it evenly between us." She finishes with a smile. Rose nods her agreement.

Phasma's eyes widen and then soften, her relief shining through her whole body. "That's, so...it's too generous. Thank you, thank you so much. I'll do my best to keep my choices modest so that the true cost won't too far exceed what I can give you."

"That's your prerogative, but please don't limit yourself. This is a good thing you're doing for Hux and we want to help you make it happen."

Phasma's grin is blinding, giving her face a brightness that rivals even Rose's. "A million times over, thank you. I had hoped you guys would help, but never something as huge as this. You'll both be in my debt."

"Throw in a case of free whiskey after you guys open up and you've got yourself a deal." Rose jokes, and the three of them rise from the sand, brushing themselves off as Phasma begins to describe what sort of blooms and colors she had in mind. 

When they're back on the sidewalk, Rey asks, "So what does Hux think of all this?"

Phasma squirms. "I haven't actually... told him yet. Talking to you guys was the last step. I didn't want to propose the idea until I was sure it could all work out. I don't want it to cause him any further stress."

Rose hums, then Rey speaks. "Want to come back to the shop and discuss the desserts? Is that good for you, Rose?"

Rose nods and drifts away, walking backwards towards the corner. "I need to call some vendors, anyway."

Rey fills Finn in on the plan while Phasma peers into the pastry case. Finn gives her a smack of a high-five, and exclaims that he'd be happy to help.

She and Rey sit down at one of the little two-seater tables right near a window, Rey with an empty notebook and pen.

"So what are you looking for?"

Phasma shrugs, stays silent for a moment. "Well originally, it was just going to be a giant white cake, standard buttercream and draped in fondant. But I was never all that excited about it." 

"I think we can do better than that." Rey muses, and Phasma smiles. "Tell me more about the venue?"

"It's an old citrus farm. The ceremony is in the barn, and then the reception is just outside, in a big clearing surrounded by lemon groves."

Rey nods. "How much space is there outdoors?"

"Oh, half an acre, I would say."

"And is there a road leading up to it, or is it only accessible by foot?"

"Uh... I think there's a track that goes past the barn and around maybe half the clearing. Why?"

Rey grins slowly. "Hey Finn?"

Finn pops out from the kitchen, wearing gloves as he pipes frosting swirls onto a cookie. "Yeah?"

"Is the truck still in working order?"

\-------

The truck was where it all started, for Rey. She and Finn bought it not too long after he graduated from pastry school. They revamped it themselves after tons of research and Rey sweet-talking a few fellow food truck owners into divulging the process of the modifications they made.

Irresistible was a staple on the food truck circuit of Coruscant, Takonada City, and Hoth, showing up at Farmer's Markets, public parks, festivals, the state fair. And occasionally, they did private events. A huge high school graduation party, a couple's 50th anniversary, one very extravagant dog birthday bash.

But Rey was ready to settle down. Ready to have something more stable under her belt, where she could be more creative with her flavors and Finn wasn't baking out of his tiny apartment then packing everything in before they departed for that day's destination. When they found out a space was available for rent along Coruscant Beach, the decision seemed like a no-brainer.

The truck has been parked in the backyard of Finn's tiny one-bedroom house ever since. Phasma's smile gets bigger and bigger as Rey explains her idea.

Soon, they have it settled. There will be a small display table of all of Finn's most popular pastries: umbrella cakes, silver dollar cookies, a few artful fruit pies, some cupcakes spelling out "Phaz and Hux" and a mini doughnut tower. He designs a tiny lemon chiffon cake just for them to cut and shove a bit into each other's faces. But most of the dessert will be, you guessed it: ice cream.

Phasma shows Rey a mockup of the reception area. Seating maybe fifty yards from the barn on the near edge of the meadow, dance floor in the middle, with strand upon strand of twinkling lights strung above all of it. Phasma calls the venue, and they explain the truck will best be parked on the far side of the glen, on the side closest to the dirt access road.

They spend some time perusing the menu to pick four flavors.

Phasma settles on Blueberry Balsalmic, Key Lime, Beach Chair Chocolate (with almonds and sea salt), and a Raspberry Rosé sorbet, which she samples and asks, "Is there any way to add just a bit more booze to this?"

Rey is finding more and more reasons to like this woman.

After all of it is settled, they sit back chatting, Rey occasionally leaves the table to help a customer when things inside the parlor pick up. She comes back to the table with a small blue box of pastries for Phaz to take home, and she's just reviewing the donut colors, to be sure they match the wedding theme, when she hears a car door slam and turns to see Ben, stepping out of his 4Runner, a box under his arm.

He's wearing sunglasses, so Rey doesn't realize he's staring back until he reaches the sidewalk and peers into the window at them. Despite the shades Rey can still see his eyebrows furrow. Phasma is still chattering away, and Rey tries to focus back on the conversation.

She hears the jangle of the bell. Her eyes dart up.

He's walked in.

\--------

Ben didn't expect to see his business manager and Rey sitting together in her cafe, when he came in to help finish stocking the bar. They're less than a month away from opening, and seeing Phasma even stop to take a breath seems ridiculous.

Which is why, after a moment's hesistation, he strolls into the ice cream parlor and pushes his sunglasses up onto his head. He's greeted by that smell he can't describe, that sweet cold smell that perfumes every ice cream place he's ever witnessed.

"Hey!" Phasma says brightly as he approaches, and her typical malaise of late appears to have vanished.

"What are you doing in here?" He asks, and he sees Rey's nostrils flare.

"Oh uh, actually Ben, could you sit down for a moment?"

He shifts on his feet in surprise, glancing around.

The shop is fairly quiet, it's right around the dinner hour, so he leaves the box in the middle of the floor and pulls up a neon purple chair, well aware of the way his body dwarfs it as soon as he sits down.

He glances between them, warily. "What's going on?"

Phasma seems uncertain, so Rey takes a breath and says, "Phasma's moving up the wedding date, to be sure Hux's dad can be there. And as such, she needed emergency dessert catering help. Which I am providing."

Ben takes a long moment to digest that.

The wedding.

Moving it closer.

They need desserts?

Right, desserts.

Rey owns a dessert parlor.

He turns to Phasma.

"Hux didn't mention anything about changing the date." He says, and Phasma's eye twitches.

"I didn't want to offer it to him until I was certain I could make it happen all on my own. He doesn't need another thing to worry about. But talking to Rey, and Rose, was the last thing. So I'm sure we can do it now." There's a determination in her voice like she's trying to convince herself as much as she's trying to convince him.

He swallows. "Okay. Well, he'll be here soon, he was just following me from the warehouse. I think you should tell him right away." Phasma nods. "When's the new date?"

Phasma's eye twitches again, harder. "Um, it's September 27th," she practically whispers.

"I...what? September 27th?" Ben can't help the sharp note that punctuates his voice. Phasma nods. "Phaz, are you...."

He's about to ask her if she's lost her mind. That's a Sunday, and they open the following Friday, with soft-open events Tuesday and Wednesday to help them prepare for full service that weekend. 

Ben sees the desperation in her eyes. He knows why she's doing all of this. He starts mentally shifting things around, recalculating the time they have to prepare. There's so much that isn't done.

It just doesn't seem possible.

"I'll only be off the clock for that one day, Ben. I promise." 

He swallows hard. "No. We have so much left to do, Phaz. I don't see how this can work. It's just too close to opening. Even a week, er, two weeks _after_ opening could work, once we have the routine down and some of the new staff are more trained, but the same week just-"

"They don't have two extra weeks." Rey says, her voice hard.

Ben looks away from Phasma and over to her. Her eyes are hard too.

Ben stares at her. He doesn't really feel this is a conversation in which Rey has any role, and he's not too pleased with the fact that she's intruding.

She must be able to read his mind like he suspects, because she stands and says, "Solo, I need to speak to you for a moment. Alone."

If Phasma weren't here he might be snarky, ask if Rey's just going to jump his bones again, but he keeps his mouth shut, and after a moment of Rey waiting on him, tapping her foot, he gets up and follows her around the glossy white counter, into the kitchen where Finn has his back to them, and leads him into a small closet filled with baking supplies, extra ice cream canisters, and boxes of holiday decorations. She closes the door behind them and whirls on him.

"You are going to go back out there and tell Phasma that the new wedding date isn't a problem."

He opens his mouth, scoffs, looks around the room as though the baking tools might come to his defense, then faces her again. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you decided how I approach decisions that affect my business." 

"Ya know, Ben, normally I would think I had no right to do that." She crosses her arms. "But considering the circumstances, it seems you need an external conscience to make up for your lack of one, so that's the job I'm doing right now." 

"Why?"

"_Why?_" She repeats. "Because I'm trying to briefly shatter your veneer of unrelenting dickishness. Shatter it just long enough to prevent you from denying your best friend a new wedding date because _his father is dying._"

"I didn't deny it to him, I denied it to Phasma." He mumbles, and Rey steps closer, laughing humorlessly. 

"Oh oh of course, my bad. You being an asshole is okay because it's directed not at your best friend, just at the woman he's in love with, who's trying to make his life easier and better. No problem with you doing that, because _she_ isn't your BFF, just the woman who helped build your business." Rey huffs, rocks on her heels."You're the one who reorganized all your responsibilities so that you could take the plumbing issues off Hux's hands when he couldn't manage them. You _know_ what he's going through right now. This isn't any different. In fact, this is more important."

He still stares, still doesn't know what to say. So she goes on. "I know the new date is uncomfortably close to your first night running the tasting room. I know you are incredibly, horribly anal-retentive about everything being perfect as the day draws closer." She blows out a sharp exhale. "So...If you need extra help before you do the soft open, let me know."

He opens his mouth to retort, to refuse her help, but she speaks over him, "As you're always so keen to mock me for, I have built a successful business and would be an okay person to have around as you finalize everything. I could lighten the load."

He wants to spit an insult, in response to the reminder of her success. 

He considers her for a long, tense moment.

Pauses fraught with tension are really becoming their standard.

"Fine." 

He goes to move past her to exit the room, but she steps in his way. "What?" He spits.

"When you tell Phasma, you're going to be nice about it. Don't make her feel any guiltier than she already does. She doesn't need that."

He wants to argue all over again, wants to release this uncomfortable feeling of being beaten by her, again, in a debate. But before he can stitch together a retort she puts her hands on her hips to signify she won't budge, and whacks her elbow on a nearby stainless steel shelf. It makes a dull thud and she swears under her breath, "OW, shit." Her eyes scrunch up.

"Oh," Ben says, involuntarily, reaching to gently cup her elbow and move it away from the offending shelf. His fingers just barely skim her skin, not wanting to make the pain any worse, and she swallows visibly. "You ok?" He says softly.

She glances up at him, and he becomes suddenly aware that all the anger has evaporated from the room.

All of his formless frustration and anxiety.

All of her determination to tell him off.

All of it is gone, and instead he's left hanging his head a little because of the low ceiling, looking down at her, hand still clutching her bent elbow, both of them within the tight channel between the shelves. 

"I'm fine." She whispers back, and Ben feels as her free hand covers his where it rests on her elbow, to push him away, he thinks at first.

But she doesn't. Instead her palm presses against his fingers gently. When her eyes are on him this close, he can see their green-gold-brown depths, flecked and faceted, looking so three-dimensional, the way some gemstones do. He can also feel how her gaze seems to penetrate his skull, that odd surety that she can sense everything inside. He's gotten it since that first day, during the spat about the moving truck.

He hates it. Hates feeling so seen, when he tries so hard to put walls up, to build layers between himself and those around him.

He could push his way past her. He could pull his hand from her elbow and clear his throat, could ask her another question. Could step back and ask her to open the door.

But as her hazel gaze keeps boring into him, he tries to do the same to her. Tries to see past that perpetual smile to her customers, past her seemingly endless energy and constant jokes whenever anyone isn't laughing. He peers through why she's always trying so hard. 

And what he sees is fear, and frustration, and determination, and maybe some sadness. A cocktail of emotions that's not so different from the one swimming in his blood, too.

Ben so rarely feels a need for tenderness. Yet now, as he drinks in all that those eyes hold, he's desperate for it.

So he doesn't step away, or push past her. He raises his hand from her elbow to the back of her head and presses gently.

Somehow, she knows to lean forward, to turn her face into him so her cheek presses against his collarbone, her nose just reaching the hollow of his throat. He turns his head the same way, and rests it on top of the crown of her hair.

Rey wraps her arms around him slowly, hands spreading wide against his back, and he sighs at the feeling of her slight, firm warmth against him. They stay like that for a few seconds.

He feels her rock her hips towards him the slightest fraction. He'd never admit it, but that tiny flicker of motion makes him start to get hard. He tilts his own pelvis towards her too, and they sway a little, Ben resisting the urge to start playing with her hair, to hum the song stuck in his head, to find a reason to make them remain this way.

A loud clang from the kitchen breaks the spell, and she lets her arms loosen, and he takes a step back. 

She meets his eye, whispers, "Why did you-"

"I don't really wanna talk about it." He rushes out, and winces.

It's not the first time he's told her that.

Once when they were in the office, and now. Looking at her, he's pretty sure she's thinking about that too.

"Okay." She says, those depths in her eyes shuttering. She nods. She turns, runs a hand over her hair, and then opens the door. 

Finn is still washing dishes, bopping to whatever is playing in his headphones, and when they emerge into the parlor again, Phasma looks anxious.

Ben doesn't sit, but braces his hands on the back of his purple chair and says lowly, "The new date is fine. I'm...I'm happy you found a way to be sure Hux's dad can be there. Mind if we meet tomorrow to shuffle a few things around, to be sure we can work around it?"

Phasma's tall, regal body sags in relief, and she smiles. "Thank you so much, Ben. I promise this won't interfere." 

He swallows his pride and nods. "You've given me every reason to be confident in your abilities as a businesswoman. This doesn't change that. But...you need to tell Hux right away."

As though manifested from the ether, a familiar head of red hair begins walking past Irresistible. 

Phasma sits up straighter, then stands, grabbing her blue box of pastries and muttering, "See you tomorrow Ben. Talk to you soon, Rey." 

"Go get em' tiger." Rey says with a conspiratorial grin, and there it is again, her ever-present humor, glossing over every situation. Ben shoots a sharp glance at her.

Phasma exits, the bell ringing overhead, and catches Hux right as he was about to enter First Order.

Neither Ben nor Rey makes any attempt to hide the fact that they are watching the exchange.

Hux looks like he always does.

Which is like he smelled something terrible and can't get the scent memory out of his brain. Ben's known him for years, and that's his blanket facial expression for nearly any negative emotion. It's pretty unfortunate.

But the sneering curled lip fades as Phasma speaks and gestures, into a mix of surprise and nervousness. He nods a tiny nod, listens to her talk for a while longer, and then to Ben's total shock, his eyes fill up with tears. He takes a hitching breath so deeply his chest visibly heaves, and he slams into Phasma, clutching her around her shoulders, nearly making her drop her blue box. Ben watches him cry into Phasma's hair for a moment, then pull back, wiping his face, and in the movement of his lips Ben can see him saying "thank you," over and over and over again.

He finally looks away. For an undetermined amount of time, Rey has been looking at him. 

"What?"

Before the word is even fully out of his mouth she yells, "Nothing!"

Ben gives the couple another minute to collect themselves, trying not to stare at the naked vulnerability and raw connection that fuses when they look at each other. They're both so private: it's part of what made them good friends for him. They don't reveal much that's personal, and neither does Ben.

But it also means he's seen so little of their relationship dynamic, because they choose to keep that so far separated from work.

Seeing them now is to see the energy of two people brimming with trust and love. Ben's never seen Hux look at someone that way, especially not since his dad got sick and he got angrier at the world.

Ben leaves without even looking at Rey again, picking up his box from the floor and getting back to his 4Runner, intent on completing some work, any work, that can be done from home.

Before he turns the key he closes his eyes for a moment, remembering the feeling of Rey pressed against him in the baking closet. The calm he felt, just for a second.

He tries to use the memory to push back against a rising tide of nervousness inside of him. Nervous about his opening, nervous about the press reviews that have yet to come out, and nervous about something new now, too. 

Nervous about what he just saw with Hux and Phasma. Nervous that Ben has barely ever witnessed - and never felt - the type of harmony that was humming between them. 

\--

Rey and Rose walk into the thrift store with the determination and zeal of people who consider themselves stylish but are very, very much on a budget.

When they finally heard from Phasma what her budget was, for the flowers and desserts, that number allowed them to get a more general sense of the budget overall. Between their budget guesses and Phasma's comment that the attire is_ dressy formal,_ it became clear that the clothes they already own are not likely to suffice.

Rey has a few simple knee length dresses she wore to fancier school functions...during the time she had stayed community college, of course. Before she moved to California at 18, god knows she had no reason to own nice clothing.

She chooses not to think about that part.

She has one secondhand pantsuit she bought on a resale site, wanting to look professional when she and Finn went to the bank to apply for a loan to open the parlor. Other than that, her entire wardrobe is jeans, shorts, and worn out t-shirts, some that fit and some that are oversize, which she uses as pajamas or beach cover-ups. 

Not exactly wedding material. Rose is similar, the shop was always her parents' livelihood, and while they certainly never had trouble putting food on the table, there was hardly extra cash to keep the girls in ball gowns. 

Which is how the women find themselves strolling into their local Nifty Thrifty a week before the wedding.

Finn's covering the parlor and Mrs. Tico's covering the produce shop, while dresses are procured.

Half an hour later, Rey is lackadaisically flipping through a rack she's almost positive she's already browsed, and the screeching of metal hangers across metal poles is grating on her nerves. 

Rose is similarly listless. They've both tried on a few options, but everything is too out of style, too worn out, or simply...not cute. 

Rey is just about to raise the white flag and suggest they return to Cowry Avenue and actually run their respective businesses when Rose emits something akin to a wordless, triumphant war cry from a few aisles over.

"I found something for you!" She cries, scurrying over. The racks are in the way, so Rey can't get a clear look at what she's holding.

When she rounds the corner, Rey's eyes widen in surprise. It's pink, almost a deep raspberry shade, with a square neckline and thick straps and a slim cut.

"It has pockets!" Rose cries.

The skirt looks fitted, but has a little jutting flare at the hem. The fabric has a satiny sheen as it moves under the harsh fluorescent lights, and except for one small place where a seam is loose and in need of a few stitches, it's in perfect shape. 

"Wow, I..." Rey says, eyes widening, "I'm not sure I woud have chosen that for myself."

"Which is probably why I was the one to find it." Rose quips with a grin, and Rey concedes that point, nodding along as the takes the dress and watches it dangle from the hanger. 

"I'll go try it on. And I...had an idea, of something that might work for you, but I don't want you to be annoyed by the suggestion."

"Um, what?" She says cautiously.

"Have you considered looking in the teen section?"

Rose's face immediately brightens and she lets out a long cackle. "That's not annoying at all! All my jeans come from the Juniors' rack at K-mart." She cranes her neck, but due to her diminutive stature she can barely see over the rows, and says "I didn't even realize they had a teen section here."

"It's over by housewares," Rey supplies, pointing, and Rose darts off. Rey leaves too, in search of an empty dressing room.

The dress fits perfectly. It hugs her small chest and skims her hips, highlighting the shape of her backside. It's comfortable and has a slight amount of stretch in the fabric, meaning that when she has to spend most of the reception scooping and serving, all the extended arms and bent torsos won't be difficult to achieve.

One thing she knows she can't tolerate are high heels. A night spent bent over the ice cream case in stilettos sounds like just the catalyst for a year of chronic back pain, so when she spots some glossy black oxfords in the shoe section, she doesn't care that they're for men, and for once she's grateful for her huge feet. 

Rey's glad she suggested the teen section, because Rose digs up a frothy black number, strapless with a three-tiered skirt, and the proportions are actually appropriate for her. She selects some electric green heels, and Rey has never seen a shoe that better described her friend's personality.

With the matter of their dresses out of the way, the rest of the week is spent normally, while preparing for the wedding. Finn and Rey make all the pastries in order of what will stay fresh the longest, making the ice cream first, the cookies the night before, the cake, the pies and donuts the day of. They close at noon on Sunday to be sure everything is ready, and with Rose's permission, they have the truck parked in the alley in the back. 

Rey sees Hux loading cases of alcohol into Ben's SUV, and she yells through the open front door of the parlor, "Drinks for the reception?"

He glances up, his face pinched as usual, but surprisingly, his expression eases a little, as he comes closer to the doorway.

"Uh, yeah. We used our vendor discount to get everything for cheap." He even offers a forced chuckle, at which Rey smiles charitably.

"Good idea. I think it's gonna be a great celebration, Hux."

He shifts nervously on his feet, the shadow of the door thrown across his pale face, and he nods. "Thanks, I think so too."

He wanders off to finish packing the car, Rey locks up the parlor, grinning to feel the key to the truck back in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter and any predictions on what's gonna go down at the wedding. :)


	6. Faintly Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, friends, have an update. You deserve it!
> 
> I saw TROS and I'm gonna need four gin martinis and a week alone in a dark room to process it. There were parts I liked, and parts I....didn't. 
> 
> If anyone wants to discuss it, I would love to have someone to talk to. I don't have any friends in """"real life"""" who are as invested in this universe as us, so it's hard for me to get into the weeds of what I want to talk about in my everyday conversations.
> 
> I don't have a Tumblr or Twitter, but can be found at 7sevenbetter@gmail.com, if anyone is interested. Please let me know what you thought of the movie, and also about this chapter. Thanks dudes :)

As Rey waits on the sidewalk for Finn to swing around in the truck, she's grateful the day of the wedding dawned cooler than the last few. The heat has ebbed and flowed all summer, making great business for Rey and the other stores along the beach, but by late September even she's had enough of days whose asphalt scorches your feet through your sandals.

They get ready, sharing the tiny bathroom in Finn's house. She slips into her dress and carefully applies the matching lipstick she found at Target. Following Rose's advice she's kept her makeup simple: just the lipstick and a little mascara. No matter how cool the day is, once she and Finn start handing out cones at the reception she's sure she'll be sweating, and she doesn't want a face full of cosmetics dripping off of her. 

She's just about to leave the bathroom when she spies something colorful peeking out from behind Finn's hamper, and she reaches to grab it, rolling her eyes. She remembers from their time as roommates that he's notorious for kicking off his socks in the most random places. He loved to blame "The Void" for the disappearances, only to have Rey pluck a dusty novelty holiday sock from under the couch and throw it squarely in his face.

But what her hand brings back is not a sock printed with a cheeseburger pattern, or a commemorative sock from the Grand Canyon.

It's a bra, in a pretty sea foam green color, more of a bra_lette_ if Rey really had to analyze it, simple cotton with soft cups inside and a smattering of floral lace. Rey peers into the back at the stamped tag and sees it's intended for a 36C. 

"Certainly doesn't belong to me, then." She mutters to herself,and rises, using her free hand to adjust her dress before throwing open the bathroom door. Finn is sitting on the couch in his suit, idly thumbing through his phone.

"Either you've been doing a lot more pectoral work at the gym and started needing this, or there's been someone else in this house." She says, words accusatory but tone light, letting the bra dangle from one finger.

Finn looks up disinterestedly, but at seeing what she holds his eyes widen and he jolts up off the couch, scrambling to take the bra from her and half hide it behind his back. 

"No, no it's...it's not mine." He says defensively, and then looks away from her. Rey does her best to stifle the bubble of laughter she can feel in her throat. 

"Then who does it belong to?" She mutters with a lascivious eyebrow waggle, and Finn splutters for a moment longer.

"I don't want to talk about it...talk about her yet. Not til I'm certain things are...certain." He explains sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

Rey softens. "You don't have anything to be embarrassed of, you know." She mutters. "It's me, Finn. I've watched you fall in and out of love a handful of times. You can trust me, but if you're not ready, you're not ready."

Finn looks up, finally, and nods, seeming grateful to have an out from what is clearly a petrifying conversation for him. 

Rey can't just let it go, though. "But if you /were/ to wear it, light green would be a great color for you."

Finn goes to retort but is drowned out by the volume of Rey's laughter.

\-------

With the truck loaded up, they head for the farm past the outskirts of Coruscant, over the foothills at the edge of the valley, brittle with yellowing late summer grass. The occasional group of cows dots the hills and as they crest the apex, Rey can see the cluster of dark trees in the distance that span the citrus farm. 

Being in the truck with Finn makes her feel like it's five years ago, before all the stress and all the triumph of the storefront. 

Before Rey moved into Maz's loft, before Rose had become her best friend, before all of that. 

Back then, she and Finn were strategic. They'd fit in in as many festivals and local events as possible, going to the business district of Takonada City during the middle of the day to sell desserts to tired, anxious execs on their lunch hour. Anything to give the truck maximum exposure, to make more money and ultimately save more money towards the dream of opening up their own shop. It feels like a lifetime away now. 

Suddenly, Rey remembers the guy she was dating at the time, an accountant who loved triathlons and was fascinated by sharks, and used to tell Rey crazy stories of growing up with his mother's pet parrots. He drank way too much soda and was fairly shy when first meeting new people, and Rey always suspected he was drawn to her natural sense of exuberance because she saved him from having to be so social.

Rey had liked him a lot, maybe even loved him if she really thinks hard about it. 

He was a good, kind, attractive man. But it never felt _right_. Perhaps it was the way he shrank back from arguments, or the fact that Rey loved cats, would pet every one she saw on the street, and he never, ever made an effort to alter his opinion that cats were mean and rude. Even when she found a nice one he wouldn't reach out his hand to let it sniff, but he could talk at length about hammerheads and nurse sharks and great whites, and Rey always did her best to remain interested. 

Little things like that got in the way of them quite fitting together. When Rey looked at him, really looked, she felt fondness.

But never the connection that she yearned for. When their gazes made contact she never felt she really saw him, and by the same token, she never really felt seen.

_Not like Ben._

The thought bursts intrusively into her head, and she almost jerks at the suddenness of it, but manages to control her physical reaction so as not to alarm Finn, next to her, driving.

She tries her hardest to ignore the errant musing, distract herself recalling more memories from her truck days. 

It's no use. That's the thing about an intrusive thought, it keeps _intruding_, and so with a sigh, she allows herself to explore this corner of her mind that she is apparently unable to control.

She thinks back to their most recent..._moment_...in the storage closet at the parlor, and the way she forced him to acquiesce to Phasma.

She thinks of how little she really said...how little she needed to say, for him to finally surrender to her request. And despite how little she said, the way his dark eyes pinned to her made her feel that he knew everything about her motivations. About the small ways she has always lived vicariously through others' families, and how all of it led her to this moment.

To yelling at him in a closet that, he had to no choice but to help Hux's dad be at the wedding.

...He had no way of knowing any of that, of course. But she couldn't shake the feeling that he could suss it out, just with his gaze.

It's unsettling, sure, and annoying that it had to come from someone so regularly abhorrent.

But for someone like Rey, who had mastered the art of offering only what she wanted others to see, there is the smallest seed of relief, in knowing that her best efforts couldn't prevent herself from being deeply understood by someone.

They turn into the farm's entrance and Rey welcomes the distraction. It's beautiful, a long private drive lined with oak trees, the barn blazing red in the bright sunlight. Rose is already there, her parents helping carry arrangements to and from a delivery truck into the wide double doors of the barn.

Rose and Finn find a staff member for the venue, who helps them back the truck into its spot across the meadow. They plug in the external generator to keep the freezers running. They unload all the baked goods into the catering room, then they lend a hand to the Tico family, tromping out to the clearing to set arrangements and scatter petals along the circle of tables where the guests will eat dinner. 

Rey can't help but grin as she approaches two big, silver chairs at the head table. Two heavy cards hang from the backs, with a big P and H printed in rustic script, and per Rose's instructions, Rey slides a single white tulip into the pocket of each card.

She might never have barely witnessed their relationship dynamic. She _definitely_ doesn't understand how anyone could fall in love with Hux, let alone someone as kind as Phasma, but at the end of the day they've chosen each other, they like each other enough to make a huge commitment to each other, and that's a level of trust Rey admires. The only person she thinks she trusts that much is Finn, but even their relationship lacks the important piece of handing your _heart _to another person, and feeling sure they will respect it. 

Soon their work is done, and thankfully it coincides with when the guests start to arrive, so they head into the barn to find the ceremony space simply decorated, mostly with branches and greenery, dark wood chairs lined up in neat rows. Among all the foliage is the occasional blossom, a magnolia or a tulip, both in white. Rey admires their taste, and compliments Rose on her handiwork.

Rose, Rey and Finn pick a group of seats about halfway back on the left. Everyone else filters in, and Rey watches as an older woman with strawberry blonde hair helps a man walking with a cane. He's got thin gray hair and his face is pallid. The shape of his mouth and color of his eyes are all Hux. He sits down heavily in the front row, just as the sunset begins and shafts of golden light filter through the distant trees, into the open doors of the barn, and onto the raised platform awaiting the bride and groom. 

A piano player and violinist in a far corner start up, and the first bridesmaid rounds the corner, in a lavender dress with tuxedo clad man holding her arm. Her bouquet, again, is simple magnolias and tulips. 

There are five bridesmaids, and the last one is Phasma's younger sister, just as statuesque, another pale blonde with flushed cheeks and a glisten in her eye that tells Rey a few happy tears may have been shed today. 

Ben's escorting her. His face is serious, but softer than normal, and Rey supposes it's good they were paired together for the walk, because they are a head taller than everyone else in the wedding party.

Rey is forced to admit it to herself. Ben loos _good. _

The tux is perfectly tailored to his powerful build, and despite its steep departure from his usual jeans and flannel shirts, he looks like he was born to wear something formal. 

He takes his place on the left half of the altar and murmurs something to the groomsman next to him, who smiles briefly. His eyes side over the crowd, but when his gaze reaches Rey it stops, lingers for a moment.

She gives a tiny nod in greeting. He only purses his lips in return, glancing away. She can't help rolling her eyes.

Suddenly it's time for the big moment, and Hux strides down the aisle alone to take his place next to Ben. Hux's eyes grow faraway as he looks over and smiles at his dad, and Ben notices, his face creasing deeply, into some sort of sorrowful glare. Rey watches as he rearranges it, muscle by muscle, into something more neutral. He slides an arm across Hux's shoulders and when his friend looks over, Ben offers the pale ghost of a reassuring smile. 

Rey hates to be so sentimental about it, but when Phasma turns the corner and everyone stands, it's a little magical.

She sees Hux's gaze soften and his face splits into a grin so wide Rey can scarcely believe it's the same man. Phasma's face mirrors his, as she strides slowly, regally down the aisle on the arm of her father. Her dress is diaphanous, a million layers of sheer fabric draped so gently across her body it's almost impossible to tell where it's been fastened to her. 

The ceremony is simple and not especially long, with sweet vows where Hux and Phasma both take a moment to poke gentle fun at each other's annoying habits. Apparently Hux is afraid of moths, once screaming aloud in the park when a butterfly landed on him. Phasma puts cream on her hands then wears gloves to bed, which has led her to perform a short, nightly mime routine, which has led Hux to fall out of bed laughing on multiple occasions.

Rey's wiping hysterical tears from her eyes by the end of it. She looks up to see Ben, pinching the bridge of his nose, When he laughs, the creases in his cheeks look like dimples.

Everyone adjourns to the clearing for dinner just as the glow of the sun starts to fade from the sky, and a blanket of purple-blue begins overhead.

\-------

Ben arrives to the wedding an hour before the ceremony, to supervise loading the bar and be sure the bartenders understand the steps to the signature cocktail. Whiskey-based, of course, with citrus elements that pay homage to the venue and a warm, spicy finish courtesy of peach puree laced heavily with nutmeg. 

Ben thinks it's excellent.

Then again, he did come up with it. 

Satisfied with the bar situation, he pulls at the collar of his tux. It's a warm day, and if he doesn't get out of the heat soon he has no doubt he'll start sweating under the dress shirt and jacket he's sporting. He's grateful Hux went with classic black; Ben chose to purchase his suit, and he may actually be able to wear it again.

He turns around to head back to the cottage where the groomsmen are waiting: drinking, playing cards, and waiting for everyone else to arrive. As he passes the barn, he hears a peal of laughter coming from inside, and through the cracked doors a flash of vibrant pink that disappears after an instant. He keeps walking, but slowly, as two wedding ushers roll back the huge barn doors. Ben's eyes trace the rows of chairs, the foliage and decorations, and there, that flash of pink was...Rey.

Clad in a startling and vibrant dress. So different from the faded t-shirts and well-loved jeans that clothe her every day at Irresistible. 

It's fitted; it fits _well._

_God_ does Ben try to avoid letting his eyes linger on the swell of her hips. On the way the hem brushes her calves as she moves. She's wearing black shoes with no heel, almost like a man's dress shoe, and while Ben would certainly appreciate a stiletto making her long, lithe body look even more endless, he admits to himself that for a woman who normally wears hiking boots around southern California, this oxford seems like a more natural choice.

Her hair is up, braided in a gracefully chaotic way his eyes cannot decipher, and the golden light coming through the barn doors illuminates the strands twisted like determined vines. 

She's helping Rose put the last of the flowers out. Finn is nearby somewhere too.

Ben's aware that he's been standing utterly still not 50 feet from the barn entrance for several seconds now. But he checks, and there's no one else around to notice, so he doesn't move. 

Instead he sees her turn, as she realizes a bloom is hanging awkwardly from its place. As she goes to straighten it, her face comes into view, and Ben swallows hard.

She's wearing bold, deep pink lipstick that matches her dress, there's a sleek darkness around her eyes that tells Ben it must be eyeliner and mascara. Her absurd, angular, perfect cheekbones are dusted pink, half from the heat and half from the exertion of stretching and bending to each flower. 

He feels a compulsion to say hello, to tell her she looks nice, to offer to help.

...to do any other number of things that would be perfectly appropriate for someone _else_ to do.

_This isn't like that_. They aren't indifferent neighbors, or casual acquaintances. 

Ben grits his teeth, a tiny sliver of regret that they acted on their lust and anger that first night in the office. If they hadn't done that, the matter of the water shutoffs may have faded into obscurity. Maybe they could have started interacting like normal people. Maybe she wouldn't hate him. And maybe, now, he could have gone to say hello.

Finn calls something out to both of the women, and they look up to hear his question. Ben's stomach lurches. Rey doesn't notice him in her periphery, but Rose does, glancing over and briefly waving hello before returning to the box of greenery sprigs she's emptying. Ben raises a hand in greeting just in time for Rose to see it, and as soon as she looks away, he flees back to the groomsmen, sighing in relief as the air conditioning in the cottage washes over him. 

The men are all too enthralled by their snifters of brandy and the fast-paced card game to notice his entrance.

All but one.

The shorter guy, with the dark, curly, perfectly coiffed hair. One of two groomsmen Ben didn't know beforehand. He apparently went to their college, a business school classmate of Phasma's, but Ben can't say he ever remembers meeting him. Ben digs around in his recent memory for a moment before it finally surfaces: _Poe Dameron._

Poe is leaning up against the wall at the back of the room, brandy snifter held in an elegant hand.

He has dark, disturbingly magnetic eyes. Even for someone like Ben, who isn't attracted to him. He can't help but feel compelled to return Poe's gaze whenever and for however long it is directed at him.

Like right now, when Poe zeroes in on Ben from across the small room. His gaze feels almost predatory, but Ben knows extreme confidence and certainty when he sees it, and Poe has both. Poe's standing next to a huge picture window that looks out...right onto the path Ben took as he passed the barn.

_Shit._

Did he see Ben staring into the barn like a weirdo? Had he been standing there long enough to know Rey was inside? Ben glances back to reevaluate the suspicion and calculation in Poe's eyes, Ben supposes there would be nothing more suspicious than pointedly ignoring him.

It violates every one of Ben's antisocial proclivities, but he forces himself to nod in acknowledgement and cross the room to where Poe is standing. 

"Any brandy left?" Ben says casually, and Poe nods silently, arresting gaze finally shifting to the bar cart near him. He waves Ben off and assembles him a drink, forcing Ben to stand there even longer. 

"How's the barn looking?" Poe asks, and sounding casual. Ben tenses.

_Fucking, fuckity shit._

"Great," Ben rumbles, nodding slowly, accepting the glass Poe finally proffers towards him. "They picked really nice decorations." He says blandly, taking a much needed sip and savoring the rich flavor.

He savors the burn even more.

"Rose Tico did all the flowers, didn't she?" Poe mentions, leaning back against the cart and watching the other men scream and gesture wildly as the card game proceeds with a fury.

"Yep, I didn't know she did florals, but she did a brilliant job." Ben comments.

He blinks at himself. He's not normally one to offer praise to someone he barely knows. His panic is causing him to verbalize the first comment that enters his head. _Just keep making conversation._

Poe nods along with Ben's compliment, then mutters, "Hard to believe she did all that work herself."

"Oh no, Rey and Finn were helping her."

_Fucking, goddamn shitty shit._

The _one_ person he shouldn't mention, and he's just blurted it without a moment's hesitation. 

"Oh." Poe says simply, gaze riveted back onto Ben. Despite the A/C Ben feels himself start to sweat again. "Did they?"

Ben nods, and mentally scrabbles around, and finally comes up with, "They brought their truck for the desserts, didn't they?"

Poe nods, glancing back out the window to point far away, past the barn and the nearby meadow, all the way to the edge of the trees where the truck sits. 

"Hard for me to believe someone could create a functional business from something so mobile. The spirits industry is so brick-and-mortar." Ben rambles. _Yes, shop talk. Good._

Poe shrugs, "True. The food industry is much more amenable to mobile set-ups like the truck. But to be fair, the idea only seems simple at first. There are tons of modifications that have to be made, to make a good product with no permanent preparation space except what you can fit on four wheels. Designing the budget and business plan were certainly a fun challenge, though."

Ben nods along but then startles. "What...you did the business plan for Irresistible?" 

Poe rattles the ice in his glass. "Yep. First for the truck, right out of school, and then for the storefront after." 

"Wow," Ben says, floundering again. _Stick with those out of character compliments, _some rude corner of his brain says. "If they've been as successful as I suspect, you did an incredible job. You really know your stuff." 

Poe blinks several times, seeming stunned, and Ben's gratified to finally see a fissure in his calm, smooth demeanor. 

"Thanks, man," Poe mutters, and before Ben can be subjected to this agony any longer, Mitaka yells for them to rotate into the card game, getting up from his seat. Ben nudges his head towards the game and Poe nods, following him over, and thankfully the raucousness disallows any further discussion between them. Before the next round is over, it's time to line up.

Ben is paired with one Phasma's numerous sisters, a nervous, quiet girl of nineteen with the flaxen hair that seems to run in the family. She makes small talk, asks a few polite questions about his business, but other than that, she's content to keep to herself. 

The second they make their way down the aisle, Ben's eyes gravitate, unbidden, to a pair of tanned shoulders with thick pink straps. One curl has slipped out and is resting against the nape of her neck, and he watches as she turns to view the procession. At the last second, he manages to look away. 

_Stop playing with fire._

So for the rest of the ceremony, he ignores her, focuses on Hux and Phaz. The proceedings are not too emotional, not too religious, not too anything. Just nice, and simple, and honest. The last five minutes are spent roasting one another, and Ben can't remember the last time he laughed so hard. It's the most blatant display of _them_ Ben has ever seen, considering they normally keep their relationship so close to the vest, He can't help but smirk as Huz and Phasma both squirm, in turn, when the mood turns sentimental at the end, and they describe what they love most about each other.

The reception is when it hits him.

He checks on the bar, eats dinner at the head table next to Mitaka, watches the bride and groom shove cake into each other's faces, all without a blink.

He gives a brief, standard speech about watching the two of them fall in love, what an honor it is to help celebrate them, and what a joy it will be to see the life they share in the future. He takes a moment to thank them both for their dedication as they build their business together. He tells a few funny anecdotes from college and receives a respectable level of laughter from the audience. No harm, no foul. 

But then they have the first dances, and moments later, Phasma is dancing with Hux's dad. They're talking softly, just barely swaying back and forth so that it's minimally strenuous, and from his seat nearby, Hux looks absolutely...crushed.

Crushed? Ben can't find the right word, because Hux doesn't look upset, or sad, but crushed...with love, Ben finally decides. Hux's eyes have gone wide and his normally carefully arranged face is slack. He looks overwhelmed, but happy, but stressed, but also relieved, somehow.

Ben is not known for being well acquainted with emotional language, and perhaps that's why processing Hux's mein proves so impossible for him. But all of it, Hux, the fondness reflecting between his dad and Phasma's eyes, they are what finally get to Ben.

He was naive enough to think he was going to make it through tonight without any of this. _Stupid,_ he mutters to himself, taking a deep swig of champagne, then eyeing the bar and making his way over.

As he takes his first sip of whiskey, the dreaded thought hits him square-on. It's been seven years since he spoke to Han.

_My dad will never dance with the person I marry. _

He stands there, scowling, thinking of all the tiny things Hux's dad got to do and got to witness today, and each time reminding himself, Han will never do that, Han will never see that.

He feels a progressive tightening in his chest, an aching too, and his thoughts continue to spiral.

_Would my mom come? Would she even care? Would she want to give us her blessing? Luke would probably insist on coming, always thinking he's wanted where he isn't._

When Ben gets engaged-

Okay, _if_ he ever gets engaged, should he even bother telling them?

It's this last question that makes him feel especially sick, so he swallows hard, knocks back the last sip of his drink, and looks up to see that several other couples have now taken to the dance floor. Just as he's returning to his seat, Phasma announces over the mic that desserts are now served, the doughnut table, cupcake tower, and ice cream truck all ready to be attacked by the horde.

Ben turns his head to see the fluorescent lights of the truck, faintly blue, shining from the other side of the clearing. The last traces of dusk are still lingering in the sky, lending everything an evening veil, and the brightness of the truck stands in sharp contrast.

Finn and Rey are both inside, with their usual light blue aprons tied over their wedding attire. Ben can see Rey at an angle, just in the middle of laughing at something Finn said, arms stretched behind her, fiddling with her apron tie.

Her face brightens even further when someone approaches the truck. The guest gestures to the flavors, listed on the chalkboard propped against the wheel, and Ben watches as Rey, animated, provides descriptions.

Soon two lines have grown, one before Rey and one before Finn, and Ben can only watch for so long before it becomes rote and his thoughts drift back, to what was plaguing him before.

He might even be willing to talk to someone, he's so desperate for a distraction. But most people are dancing or off finding something sweet, and Ben is the only one left at the long table reserved for the wedding party.

A swirling mix of anger and disappointment builds inside him again.

All he can do is take a deep breath and wait, with some impatience, for the night to end. 

\-------

As much as Rey loves the storefront, there are some small pleasures in working out of the truck, things she had completely forgotten. Like the glow of the lights illuminating people's faces as they look up at her from the ground. Bumping into Finn and laughing as they both rush around the same tiny space. The familiar squeak of shoes against the linoleum, a sound she can't enjoy on the tiled floors of the parlor. 

Phasma pops over to get a scoop for herself, lingering after Rey has passed over the cone to thank her, again. Rey thinks back to all the love and patience she's seen all night, all the smiles and laughter and relieved, happy tears.

"Thanks for letting me be here," Rey mutters lowly, and Phasma gives her a grin and a warm, slow nod.

Seeing these people love their families, both biological and chosen, hits Rey in the gut. Rather than making her yearn for a past she didn't have, it makes her hopeful for the future: for the life and the love she can form if she just keeps building something for herself, a launchpad from which she can finally become...normal. Stable.

And then, finally, nurtured.

The weariness in her muscles feels well earned when the last guest wanders away, cone in hand. She reaches to untie her apron, shooing Finn back to the party, and finishing the cleanup herself.

\-------

The barrage of people getting ice cream finally disappears.

Ben can see Finn chatting with Hux's brother nearby, seeming absorbed in the conversation and unlikely to leave soon.

He thinks for a moment. Sighs. Thinks some more.

Perhaps waiting for the night to end isn't his only option.

He waits til he sees the lights on the truck flicker out, then rises, meandering across the clearing, lingering near the dessert table then checking in on things at the bar, just to seem less obvious.

When he finally breaks away from the festivities, his instinct is to look back and see if anyone noticed him, but he keeps staring straight ahead. _If you look back, you'll only seem more suspicious._

The truck sits outside the halo of string lights that shine onto the dance floor, so it's dark out here, in keeping with the night that has descended on them, and as Ben rounds the truck, his night vision slowly sharpens.

No need, because there she is in her fiery pink dress, erasing the ice cream choices from the chalkboard. She doesn't notice him, and he feels awkward.

He can't stop himself from hovering for a long moment, just looking at her. At the way the moonlight illuminates the burnished shine of her dress, at the muscles in her arms tensing and relaxing as she moves the old dusty eraser. Her face, in profile, is limned by wisps of hair that have escaped from her braided updo.

"Rey," he says softly, and she starts, but immediately relaxes when she sees it's him. He takes one step closer, away from the nearest lemon tree, and she turns, leaning her back against the truck. 

"Hi," she says, just as soft, her face neutral, and a little tired. They don't need to yell, the nearest other people must be near sixty feet away, so the noise from the party isn't competing with them. "Enjoying the wedding?" He grunts, shrugs, and nudges his toes against a clump of dried grass. "Your uh," she says softly, fingers tracing on the chalkboard, "your speech was really nice."

He hums again. He can't help but try to mask his nervousness, but in trying to hide it, he feels he's only making it more obvious. Even though their last hookup happened without preamble, he can't help but feel like he's obligated to say something before he...starts something.

When he looks up at her again she's doing that thing, where she looks right into his soul, as if she's seeing and assessing all his reasons for coming to her.

And as always, he doesn't like it. So he rushes forward and reaches one hand out, sliding it across her collarbone, and her lips part on the tiniest gasp.

She's already backed up against the side of the truck, so it doesn't take much for Ben to press his body against her, feel her warmth and her contours through the fabric. She immediately tips her chin up, so Ben takes that as his cue and kisses her hard, which makes her gasp again, this time into his mouth.

"Ben, what are you...? Everyone is right there." She gestures vaguely around the other side of the truck. 

"I can't," He defends, a little short of breath, "I couldn't wait, Rey. I couldn't. The second I figured out where you were, I came over here. No one will see us, I swear."

"Aren't you worried about ge-" She starts, but he interrupts her.

"I need it, Rey." 

_It_, not _you_, he reflects, and he's unsure if his word choice makes this better or worse. He winces.

That silences her, and he gets another miles-deep glance from her, but it doesn't last long enough to freak him out again, because this time it is she who leans into him, who brings their mouths into each other's orbit. 

Deep, sucking kisses one right after the other, and her hands begin to crawl across his back, trying to pull him closer, trying to get at his skin. He sheds his tuxedo jacket but unlike every previous time, the state of their clothes matters, and so he breaks away just long enough to hang it over the lip of the truck's window. 

She scarcely waits long enough for him to set it down before dragging him back down and fusing their mouths again, and he reaches down, as he has before, to pull her up closer to him, so she doesn't have to strain so hard to reach his mouth. With easier access her kisses grow more sinuous. Rey sucks his tongue and touches her lips to the corners of his mouth in feather light pecks that have his stomach tightening with want.

When she starts trailing those fluttering pecks across his neck, he takes stock of how hard he's become and groans, pinning her closer to the truck with his hips. 

She answers with a roll of her body as well, but it isn't enough, she must know, because she reaches down, forces her arm between them despite his reluctance to let even a breath of space open up, and presses the heel of her hand between his legs.

It's not surrounding him, it's not warm, or wet, or tight, but it's something, and Ben bucks his hips up into her hand. Rey's free arm guides his own hand to her chest, and that's all the guidance he needs, slipping the wide strap off her shoulder to reach down and skim his fingers across her breast. Her breath huffs out at the feeling and she breaks away from the kiss, leaning back with her eyes closed.

They've made a mess of her fuchsia lipstick, and Ben doesn't even want to think how much of it must be on his face. He's preoccupied by replicating what he did last time, bracketing her nipple with two fingers and rubbing on either side of it, building her up before he brings his fingers together to squeeze it between them. At that she lets out a moan, and while the guests may be far away they're still _right there. _Before the sound is even finished leaving her lips he's shushing her gently, leaning his head down, muttering against her mouth. 

"I wanna hear you, you know I do, but not right now, not here." She nods, and he brushes her lips with his, ready to seal the kiss if she should make any more noise, and he continues his ministrations to her chest, free hand wandering down to knead her hip and draw her leg around his waist.

She's trying to get a palm around him, but he doesn't need it, he's fully hard, and fully aching. Ready.

The hem of her dress restricts his ability to curl her leg around him, and he makes a wordless sound of frustration, before turning her around so her back faces him. She arches back into him, letting her ass slide slowly across his pelvis, and it's now he who has to stifle a sound of pleasure.

Flashes of their first time drift across his mind. The golden cast of her skin in the dim office. Grinding in between her legs, out of his mind with lust even with fabric still between them. 

He shakes off the memories and focuses on here and now, watches his own hand as he reaches down for the hem of Rey's dress, watches her face turn to look back at him as she realizes his intent, and finally, watches her hands join his as they pull the skirt up, letting it bunch at her waist, exposing the smooth expanse of her legs and backside to him.

She's wearing skimpy nude underwear in some slippery stretch fabric, likely to prevent panty line, and Ben traces the fabric along her hip with his thumb. She shivers, rolling her hips back towards him, and his body is on fire, sweating profusely at the thought of what's to come.

He yanks open his bow tie and gets the top few shirt buttons open, just enough to let a little air in, then covers her whole backside with both his hands, splayed wide, and leans down to her ear.

"You ready?" he pants, and he knows she would have already told him if she weren't, but he relishes her tiny nod, the feel of her hair rubbing against his neck with the movement, and he dips his hand back inside her underwear. They're so skimpy that it takes little effort to pull them to one side, to make space for himself to touch her clit, tap it gently. It makes Rey's breath rattle out of her and her hands shake where they're pressed flat to the side of the truck.

He presses a little harder and watches her roll her lipstick-tinted, puffy lips into her mouth, muffling the sound that bubbles out of her, and he burns to reattach their mouths, to nip at her lips until that sound is drawn out of her, muffled into him instead of into herself. 

"Ben I said I was ready," she whispers impatiently, and his body throbs at her urgency, so his hands slide off her just long enough to unbutton his pants, to get his boxers out of the way. Despite her demand, he slides in so, _so_ slowly, but the time he takes lets her adjust, and he bottoms out in one thrust.

He exhales completely at the feeling of her wet, tight heat, and he's content to stay there a moment, savor the feeling, but she's minutely pulling her hips forward and back, and so finally he responds, dragging slowly out and pushing back in, which is apparently what she wanted, because she strangles another sound of pleasure in her throat.

He reaches up, covering her hands with his against the truck as his thrusts gain momentum. Their fingers lace together, and Ben realizes he can feel the strength of her pulse through everywhere he touches her skin. Their breathing accelerates in tandem, the air gusting out of her, ghosting over their hands, and he stares at her pink, wet mouth, channeling his desire for it into his hips, but it isn't enough. He needs more.

He leans down, draping himself along her back, and with his height it's enough to reach her mouth and dart his tongue out, to trace around the shape of her lips, to taste the remnants of the champagne she must have recently drank. Her lips twitch forward and he seals them into a kiss for a moment, hips slowing, until he licks her shoulder and her mouth is free to whisper, "Go." 

"Hmm?" He mutters into her skin, and he feels her fingers tighten against his once more.

"Faster, Ben, now. Go." She mutters out the instructions almost clinically, and Ben can see on her face, in the crease between her eyebrows, that her climax must be just starting to build. She's chasing something, now. 

He's helpless not to answer that. His hips begin pistoning immediately, and she nods, slow at first and then frantically, as the friction builds and he feels her body begin to tense.

The ends of his bow tie are hanging, brushing the back of her neck, and she wrenches one hand out from under his to snatch it away. His vision wavers as he watches her crush it in her hand, wishing she could do the same to his shirt, to her dress, to every scrap that prevents them from being skin-to-skin.

"Fuck, Rey," he whispers into her neck, and she reaches back again, threading her fingers in his hair and gripping, pulling in time with his own thrusts, and that pushes him to drive harder, faster into her, his hand straying back to her clit to stroke slowly, gently. 

She manages to stay quiet, expressing her maddening need in forceful exhales through gritted teeth, and he starts to feel her tighten, the coordination of her movements growing erratic. His hand, his hips speed up that final increment, and he watches her face, watches her eyes screw up as she hits her peak. Her tightness from the inside is nearly unbearable. He presses in as deep as he can go as she rides it out, arms shaking, and as soon as her eyes open again, he takes three more long, slow thrusts, giving himself what he needs.

It courses through him in two long waves, head tipped back in the late summer air, long column of his pale throat luminous in the weak light. He can't catch his breath.

When he finally starts to come down, he finds Rey watching him through half-lidded eyes, hands sweaty, slipping off the wall of the truck.

He eases out, hissing a little, but before she can react, he tucks himself away and backs her up again until they are a hairsbreadth apart. Her eyes are wider now, wondering, but he ducks his head and whispers, "Stay here a minute." 

Just to her right, he enters the truck. It's nearly pitch black in there with the window shutters locked tight, but he manages to grope around and find paper towels. He moistens one at the sink and comes back outside, to find her holding her dress at her waist, perhaps anticipating his purpose. 

He comes closer and cleans her up, rightly sensing that he made a mess of her. She made a mess of herself too, though.

When he's done he steps back, letting her drop the hem of her dress as he watches. She steps forward, and without meeting his eyes buttons his shirt back up. She presses the strip of black fabric back into his hand and mumbles, "I don't know how to tie it." 

He nods, and she lingers and watches him as he puts it back together. When he's finished and he's retrieved his jacket, they keep standing there for a moment, the strains of some acoustic song floating over from the dance floor. He wants to kiss her, wants to drag his fingertips down her tanned arm, tacky with sweat, but he does neither.

Because this thing between them is an outlet. Nothing more.

He clears his throat, runs one hand through his hair, and then turns away, dipping into the tree line, deep enough that he's out of sight, then reemerging twenty feet away, looking for all the world like he went for a stroll in the orchard. 

He doesn't need to peek to know Rey watches him all the way back to his table. 

\-------

Rey walks back to the reception, after slipping back into the truck to wet a cloth and press it to the back of her neck. She wishes she still had it, as she slips into her seat at table number 11, one of Finn's shell cookies in hand. She munches slowly, mouth stretching wide to avoid smudging her recently reapplied lipstick. 

She washes down her last bite with a sip of her beer and leans back, catching sight of Ben just as he stands up from the long table for the bridal party, and she gasps.

There, on the left side of his collar, is the faintest trace of lipstick, a sheer pink smudge on the crease close to his neck. Rey wonders, if she were to peel it back, if there would be more on his skin.

She feels her blood begin to pound as she remembers the sloppy kisses, the way her open mouth smeared across his throat, the desperation in every touch he gave her.

He seemed so angry when he first approached her near the trees. Not angry at her, but...vibrating with it, like it had steeped into his organs and become his life force. His face was pinched and his incredibly broad body lost all of its lithe, powerful grace. Instead, every muscle seemed taut as a piano wire. He had tracked her down, so clearly feeling something he wanted to get out of him. In the past Rey sought him out in times of stress, but this time, she feels like he sought her out in a time of fury. And yet their coupling seemed to bring him the same sense of relief it brings her. A physical, neurochemical release that restores balance to her mind and body, long enough to dwell in the relief, to savor it, before reality creeps back in again.

But now, as he crosses the dance floor to the bar, the calm he gained from them appears to have been momentary. It's gone now. His face is back to a tight scowl, and Rey's blood keeps pounding for a different reason.

_Why is he such an asshole? Can't he allay his relentless negativity and anxiety for one night? Long enough to let his two best friends celebrate in peace?_

Rey can't help but feel the way he is stalking around all but reverses the nice things he had to say during his speech, because he clearly doesn't feel them. Or if he does...there's a serious disconnect between his brain and his face. 

She watches him deliver some sort of instruction to the people working at the bar, gesturing to the remaining bottles of First Order's own whiskey that sit behind, and she assumes based on the expressions of the bar staff that whatever he's saying must be at least a little belittling, and a lot condescending. She sighs, watching them talk back and forth, Ben occasionally gesticulating but otherwise expressing all of his displeasure through his face, and Rey's sure, his voice. 

"What's his deal?" A familiar voice behind her intones, and she jumps. For a moment she debates pretending she doesn't know to whom the speaker is referring.

But the speaker is Poe. Nothing gets past Poe. Trying to end this topic, Rey knows, would only further magnify it to him.

"Dunno, he seems pissed about something, but I can't imagine...something to do with his whiskey?" She says, jutting her chin to indicate the crates near the bar.

Poe braces his hands on the back of Rey's chair, his uncommonly keen gaze remaining on Ben. "Seems pretty angry," Poe mutters, and Rey leans back against his fingers.

"Yeah," she says vaguely. Lost in analyzing Ben's gaze, says softly,"Prep for their opening has really been plaguing him lately."

When she glances up, Poe's gaze has shifted to her, and she blinks slowly, staring back. "Mm. Makes sense. We were both a wreck the week before the parlor opened. And the truck before that."

"We handled it a little more gracefully, though." Rey adds with a wry chuckle, and Poe cracks a tiny grin, nodding along. 

"But he has a lot more than just his business that plaguing him, I think." Poe says absently, and after a moment of silence, begins to wander away. His words finally register in Rey's mind, and she turns in her chair.

"What?"

Poe hesitates, dark gaze returned to Rey as he backs towards the head table. "Nothing just, some stuff Phasma told me back in college." Rey continues staring at Poe, brow furrowed, still not understanding. 

Poe doesn't divulge secrets often, and when he does, it certainly isn't on accident. Rey recognizes the shroud of privacy he's trying to throw over whatever he knows. And she respects that. He disappears back into the crowd of guests and suddenly she's alone, still clutching her beer, still praying no one notices the blush of color on Ben's starched white shirt. 

Alone and without a distraction, she can't avoid the thoughts that drift to her.

_What was plaguing Ben Solo?_ And, more viscerally: w_hatever it was, why had it led him to come to her?_

In this moment, she's pretty sure she doesn't want to find out. 

\-------

When the party is finally winding down, Ben breathes a sigh of relief. It's been hours since his spate of visits to the bar, nearly as long since he saw Rey behind the truck. He's sober and indescribably ready to go home. He watched her give hugs and say goodbyes, then meander across the field, Finn's arm slung over her shoulders, smiling contentedly as she looks at him in profile. 

Ben and Hux would probably describe themselves as best friends, the same way Finn and Rey would, but Ben has to admit to himself that he and Hux's friendship has never been _like that_. Casual affection is rare, and they have none of the deep emotional understanding that is evident whenever you're around Finn and Rey. Even the ways that he and Hux make each other laugh is perpetually laced with the cynicism that originally brought them together.

Ben watches them haul themselves into the truck and drive off into the navy blue night, the headlights winking in the gaps between the innumerable trees, fading into the distance as they get back on the main road and head to the highway. 

Ben's broken from his thoughts when Poe sits down next to him, a porcelain dessert plate held in each hand. "Some of the leftover cake, from that tiny one they had." Ben snorts as he recalls Phasma using an almost comically large knife to cut a cake the size of a grapefruit.

"Thanks, but I actually don't eat dessert." Ben says, not touching the plate.

"Any dessert? Not even at a wedding? Live a little, man." Poe says imploringly.

"Nah, it's not really for health reasons." Ben clears his throat. "At least not primarily so. I just don't really like it."

Poe is quiet for so long that Ben looks up from the thin crowd and takes in his incredulous expression. He didn't even bother to turn his head, just directing a hard peripheral gaze to his right. Despite the angle, Poe's eye contact is still so unflinchingly direct that once Ben has met it, it's like a tractor beam. He can't look away.

"Have you tried Finn and Rey's desserts before?" Poe says pointedly, his eyes blessedly sliding down to the cake on the plate before cursedly, returning to Ben.

"Yep." Ben nods. "The uh, the chocolate cake that looked like an umbrella?"

"Mhmm." Poe appraises. "And what did you think?"

Ben shrugs. "It was okay." 

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay. It was fine." Ben clarifies, without really clarifying, praying Poe just accepts the answer and leaves him alone.

Ben expects some sort of long-winded tirade like Rey offered, full of excuses that he just hadn't eaten the right thing yet, or endless encouragements to just try this one piece.

But instead, Poe keeps that angled gaze on him a moment longer, still in silence, then finally mutters, "You're an odd man, Solo."

Ben has no clue how to respond. He clears his throat, to which Poe raises his eyebrows, as though expecting a retort, but nothing follows.

Instead, Ben clasps his hands together and stares down at them, waiting until Poe has used his fork to slide the second piece of cake onto his own plate, sighed in Ben's general direction, and walked away.

Before this night can get any more odd, Ben rises from the table, mutters a quick goodbye to an exhausted but content bride and groom, and slips off between the trees to find his car.


	7. Something in Common

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year my babies! I pray that 2020 brings us lots more good fic (including, maybe possible perhaps hypothetically, a TRoS fix-it from yours truly). Is a fix-it something y'all would want to read? Let me know. 
> 
> I also hope that the new year brings you that promotion you wanted at work, or renewed dedication to your hobbies, or that none of your houseplants die. 
> 
> We all have something to hope for in this new decade. 
> 
> Right now, I hope Ben and Rey can sort their shit out. Think it'll happen? Find out below!

Rey starts the week excited about the new autumn flavors up on the board, and bops through a pretty average day in the parlor. Finn leaves early, eager to get home and try out some new cake pop recipes, so Rey stays til closing. She's cleaning the glass of the pastry case when she hears the bell over the door tinkle, and she says without looking up, "Hey, sorry, we actually closed about ten minutes a-"

She stops short. Standing there is truly, honestly, the last person she expected. 

Hux.

His face is unpleasant, as usual.

His posture is rigid, also unsurprising.

Compared to the smiling man on his wife's arm whom Rey witnessed yesterday, it's hard to believe he's the same person. 

Rey recovers quickly, managing not to gape too long, and says, with forced lightness, "Oh, hey! So, what's up?"

"Um, hi." He says, not really answering her question, and glances around the parlor.

"Hey." Rey offers again. "Still basking in that post-wedding glow?"

Hux _blushes._ Never in her life did Rey think she would be able to elicit such a blatant display of positive emotion from him. 

He huffs a forced chuckle and nods, then looks at the floor. "So I was wondering if you would want to come to the..." And makes a broad sweeping gesture with his left hand.

It fails to adequately clarify the ambiguity of his words.

Rey squints. "The...what?"

"The, uh..." He gestures again, this time to the window between her and the distillery. "Opening night. Of First Order. As a thanks. For everything you pulled off yesterday. On such short notice."

"Oh! I... of course! Uh, thanks for inviting me." Rey says, shooting him a slightly wider grin. "Saturday evening, right?"

Hux nods. "It starts around seven and goes to midnight." 

Rey nods again. "Finn invited too?" She jerks her thumb backwards towards the kitchen.

"Yeah, yeah definitely." 

"Great." Rey says softly.

And, well, what else do they really have to talk about?

Rey supposes she could make another comment about the wedding, but before she can conjure up something good, Hux has spun on his heel and made for the door.

Before he gets there though, she remembers one thing she'd really, really like to say.

"Hey Hux?" He turns around, and Rey swallows hard. "It was um, it was really nice, to see your family all together yesterday. I'm really glad it all worked out in time." She takes a breath and tries to offer a reassuring smile, but it feels watery.

An expression of longing and sadness sweeps over Hux's face, but it's replaced by a melancholic smile as he half whispers, "Yeah I'm uh, I'm really grateful. You know? I..." He looks up as though to gauge her reaction. "I never thought someone would do something so big for me."

"I guess that's what separates a partner from anybody else, right?" Rey mutters gently, and Hux nods, so much of the tension eased from his face. He looks more like that man Rey saw yesterday.

He drifts out the door without another glance at her, and Rey sighs, turning back to the pastry case, rubbing aggressively at the streaks.

But her mind lingers on Hux's family and their love, and his wife, and that type of love too.

Two things she doesn't have.

She polishes the glass harder, trying to ignore that ugly little voice inside her.

She closes her eyes for a moment, focusing hard, until she can project a louder voice into her mind.

_You WILL have that love one day. You'll build a family, just like you built your business and built your dream. _

_Work hard, be patient, and the right people will find their way into your life. One day, you will have had so much love for so long you will have forgotten what you're feeling now._

What she's feeling now is the hollow, achy sensation of loneliness.

It's coming home every night to her lovely but quiet home. It's finding out good news and only having Finn to tell.

It's hugging someone and only then realizing how starved she is for touch. Her eyes well up but she forces it away, repeating that loud mantra in her head.

Buying herself a little more time and a little more patience as she waits for the day she'll feel a little less isolated. 

She takes a moment to tick off the good she has in her life, to counterbalance that tidal wave of negativity. She thinks of laughing til she cried yesterday, talking to Finn and Rose at the wedding. She thinks of the innumerable faces of delight she saw as people ate her ice cream. She thinks of Poe, loosened up after a second champagne, twirling her around the dance floor and dipping her so far she screamed with a rush of tingly fear she would hit the ground.

Suddenly she thinks of Ben, pressed against her back, pausing their coupling to mark the borders of her lips with the tip of his tongue. To kiss her softly. It was like he was saying that he was there with her, not her skin or her hips or her cunt but _her. _

An acknowledgement that they weren't both just flesh, but awake and alive and desperately wanting one another. She shudders, minutely.

And pushes the thought away.

She doesn't know what's happening between them. Her every attempt to ask him about it, to get some clarity, is shut down the second after she's spoken.

But amongst all her confusion, it feels dangerous and dumb to consider their frantic arrangement a good thing, since the other ninety percent of the time, he's making her furious. So she tries to move on to something else. Something more straightforward.

She thinks of the blooming friendship of Phaz, and maybe even Hux, and _Be-._

Shit. There he is again. She lets out a huffed breath, shaking her head to try to banish him.

\-------

Rey bounds down the creaky wooden stairs when she hears Finn's wheels crunch on the gravel down below. She smooths down her swingy black shirt dress as she goes. She feels it's only fair to Ben that she attempt to dress in line with their...what was it he had said? _Brand aesthetic?_ Or some other bullshit?

Finn clearly didn't get the memo, standing on the sidewalk in a white linen shirt and sherbet orange shorts. He's wearing his typical running shoes, and as he glances at Rey's outfit he realizes the disparity. "Uh, how were we supposed to dress for this thing?"

Rey shrugs, waving a hand in a whatever gesture, and starts down the road. "Who cares. You may be the only one there who looks like he's ever experienced happiness, but that's a pretty good reason to stand out from the crowd."

Finn snorts and walks faster to keep pace with Rey. "What's on their agenda for the night?"

"I think just whiskey. And food. Their prep area is a lot smaller than ours, but apparently it's enough kitchen space for them to support a limited small plates menu. I'm curious to see who else is gonna be there."

"Well Rose just texted she's on her way, so at the very least the three of us can stick together. If everyone else turns out to be as unpalatable as Ben and Hux." Finn chuckles wickedly, and Rey smirks in response.

"How long have you and Rose been texting?" She asks, slowly and evenly, then watches him out of the corner of her eye. He stumbles a little. Not just over his words, but his actual feet do.

"Oh, uh, we weren't like, in the midst of conversation or anything, I was just wondering if you were going to be the only familiar face there tonight, so I wanted to ask her if she'd been invited too."

"Cool," Rey nods, still not entirely convinced, but lets it go. Finn was allowed to have his secrets...heaven knew Rey had some of her own.

As they pass Irresistible, waving to the staff members who have been trusted to keep the place standing for the night, Rey can already hear the noise spilling from First Order. The doors are propped open and warm, coppery light spills from the huge picture windows.

Inside the space is filled, almost crammed, high top tables festooned with whiskey samples on tiny gold trays, tasting notes on a heavy cream-colored card underneath. The long bar at the back has innumerable dishes offering all their appetizers. There's a big group of people holding cues standing around the pool table, and a low, synthy guitar soundtrack playing softly in the background.

In short, it is very, very cool. Phasma greets them as they come in, even going as far as to hug Rey, which Rey had expected was sort of a wedding-only thing. But the way Phasma talks to them makes her wonder if her hope for a burgeoning friendship wasn't entirely misplaced.

Rey doesn't drink too often, and when she does, it's bottom-shelf gin and tonics when she and Finn reunite with old community college friends at a dive bar in Hoth.

They haven't done that in months. She knows nothing about _fine liquor,_ as she overhears Hux referring to it, so she nods along as Phasma explains the differences between the whiskey samples. 

Rey tastes them all, and is not surprised to find that the a maple-flavored one is her favorite. Phasma recommends that they head over to the bar, where three different whiskey-based cocktails are available. 

The crowd shifts, and Rey sees a man who stands out, to say the least.

He's older, must be at least sixty, bald, and wearing a well tailored, extremely formal suit with a gold tie and matching pocket square. He has a small, tense mouth and is in desperate need of a better skincare routine. He's listening intently to something a younger man is saying. Rey recognizes the young guy from the wedding.

"Hey Phasma, who's that?" She says, and gestures with her hand imprecisely, trying to avoid the rudeness of pointing. 

"Mitaka? He runs the warehouse and does some of the distilling work for us. He was one of Hux's groomsmen."

Rey makes a wordless sound, glancing back at them and pretending for a moment that Mitaka was whom she asked about. "And who's that he's talking to?"

"Oh, Snoke." Phasma says, and doesn't elaborate, eyes darting around the room until she sees the questioning gaze Rey still holds. "He's our primary investor." 

"Oh, is he a frequent supporter of... liquor businesses, or whatever?" 

"I think he's contributed some capital to a few wineries, but he's primarily a real estate developer." Phasma says, and sips her drink. "He's helped develop major buildings in almost every community in the area."

"Oh," Rey says, nodding, "Residential or commercial?"

"Both, I think. He built that apartment complex in Naboo, near the university. The one where all the students live. You and Finn used to have a place near there, right?"

"That tall apartment complex? All glass and chrome?" Rey asks, and Phasma nods.

Rey remembers that building, Poe got a sublet there while he was still in business school. She remembers all the rumors she heard: that they were notorious for falsifying damage reports to keep security deposits, that their staff was rude, cold, and entirely unhelpful, that many of the amenities residents paid exorbitant rent for: reserved parking, tanning beds, an espresso machine...were never upheld. She rolls her eyes a little, then directs her gaze back to the sickly-looking pate of the man in question.

"So how did you guys end up with _him_ as your main investor?"

Phasma shrugs. "Ben knows him somehow. He promised us a lot of creative control, but-" she hesitates for a moment, lowers her voice, "after we accepted his money he got a little controlling. We wanted to back out, but we didn't really have any other options. Not since Ben sto-" Phasma's face gets red, and she clears her throat, "It was our only option, to both generate enough product and transform this place into what it is now."

Rey blinks for a moment, processing the way Phasma had cut herself off. "Well I'm uh, I'm glad you guys were able to get what you needed to make your vision for this place come true. It looks incredible. Ben told me a little about your business plan, how you planned to market yourselves to millenials, and I think it sounded really savvy."

Phasma's cheeks pink and she smiles down at her drink. "Thanks, that means a lot. If this place is as much of a success as we're hoping, I might get to have a career in consulting with small businesses, which is really what I want." 

Rey grins back. "If we hadn't had Poe, and had you instead, I can only imagine what you would have drawn up for the start of Irresistible." 

"Well if you're ever looking to expand, you know where to find me."

Rey chuckles and nudges Phasma's arm with her shoulder, but someone across the room calls Phasma's name, and she excuses herself. Realizing she's uninterested in any more whiskey tasting, Rey heads to the bar.

She's chosen a black cherry and ginger cocktail off the menu, but no one is nearby to make it for her, so she directs a tentative, "Hello?" in the general direction of the doorway to the kitchen.

A dark head pops up from right behind the bar. Somehow Ben managed to be fully concealed when he was crouched down, despite his absurd size, of which Rey is immediately reminded. 

He stares at her for a moment, long enough for her to start to say what drink she wants, but he interrupts her. "What are you doing here?"

Rey flinches.

There are only three businesses on their block.

Only two owners besides him.

Is it really so ridiculous that she would be here? She thinks of all the things Ben has done to her, all the things they've done _together,_ and stare at him for a moment, befuddled. She bristles herself for an argument, cocking her head to one side. "I'm attending your opening night."

"Who invited you?"

"Hux."

Ben's eyes widen in surprise. "Hux?"

"Believe me, I was as shocked as you are." Ben glances around until he locates the familiar head of red hair, and Rey mutters, "You can go confirm with him, if you really want to."

"No, that's not necessary."

"Do you not want me here?" She says lowly.

"No, no, it's fine, I just...I'm shocked. Gestures of goodwill aren't really Hux's thing. Friendliness, either."

_Why is he like this? So quick to point out the deficiencies in someone else's personality, and yet so incapable of recognizing those same faults within himself?_

"Fascinating. I certainly don't know anyone else like that."

Ben stiffens just like she had, shoulders pushing back, unfairly accentuating his broad, firm chest, in an emerald green henley.

Rey rolls her eyes. "Look, it's good for your image if the other two business owners on the block are here. Just accept my presence as the gift it is and we can both move on."

He clenches his jaw, clearly chewing on a rebuttal, but keeps it to himself. His eyes flick down to the cocktail menu she's holding and he mutters, "Did you need a drink or something?"

She purses her lips. "Yes. Black cherry and ginger."

He nods.

Rey watches him, moving through the bar like it's the inside of his own home, every bottle and instrument and tool so precisely placed that his process of making a drink is like a symphony. Rey doesn't know anyone who is capable of doing different things with each hand, yet there Ben is, measuring out the right amount of ginger syrup into a vial while his other hand rubs a bit of grapefruit peel onto the rim of a coupe glass. 

"A little extra ginger syrup, please." She calls out to him, and suddenly all the synchronized motion stops. A crease appears between his eyebrows, his jaw tightens again. He braces his forearms on the inner edge of the bar, staring her down, and she spits out, "What?"

"I don't tell you how to make your ice cream. Don't tell me how to make my cocktails."

He reaches down and slides two pitted cherries onto a thin bamboo stick, balancing it perfectly across the rim. 

"Irrelevant argument, you won't eat my ice cream," Rey points out, arching an eyebrow.

That familiar angry tension winds tighter between them. 

His arm, halfway out to hand her the drink, reels back. The glass remains perfectly level in his grip, the purple, frothy liquid unmoved. "You want this drink or not, Johnson?" 

She sighs, makes her annoyance as evident as possible, and mumbles, "Yes."

He nods and then proffers the glass to her. She reaches out with both hands, and when her fingertips graze the inside of his wrist, he clears his throat. 

She takes a sip, watching his gaze flit between her mouth and her eyes, and she takes a moment to let the flavors mix and mingle on her tongue. She swallows, and his eyes shift to her throat. "It's good." She says in monotone, and Ben dips his head the a few inches, in silent thanks. 

Rey looks down at the bar, at all the cute little plates, and takes one filled with an olive and tomato bruschetta and two Brussels sprouts wrapped in bacon. Before she steps away, she turns back to him. "Hey."

He looks up. "What?"

"Don't hide behind there all night. Get out here and talk to people." She sees him twitch, and knows she hit something right on its head. "They're all here to celebrate something you helped make. You deserve to enjoy that moment."

He takes a breath, and that crease between his eyebrows finally softens. "Okay."

Rey sees Mitaka standing alone near the window into Irresistible, so she approaches him, mentions she recognizes him from the wedding, and after she admits she knows next to nothing about making spirits, he launches into a lively description of the distilling process. They're deep in discussion about the importance of boiling point when Rey notices Ben making the rounds among the room, shaking hands and saying hello. He looks a little uncomfortable (_when doesn't he?)_ but he's smiling a little, hands in his pockets, and Rey sees the group laugh as he makes a joke. Her annoyance and anger soften, the tiniest bit. 

Mitaka drifts away to get more food, and Rey stares through the interior window, watching the hum of activity inside the parlor. It's so unusual for her not to be there. She feels like a fish in a tank, watching the world go by without her, and every instinct tells her to go next door, to check in on everyone, to make sure everything is up to snuff.

But she tamps it down, she thinks of how many times she wanted to text Jessika this evening, asking inane questions like, "Did you remember to refill the empty spots in the pastry case?" or, "Don't let too many scoops accumulate in the rinse bin or else they won't be fully submerged."

Jess has been with them since a week after they opened the storefront, when they were desperate for additional staff.

Rey has seen her run the parlor with a fluid efficiency on countless shifts, leaving Rey to do other work. She has no reason to doubt her, but the fear of something going wrong, and the determination to prevent it, has such a hold on Rey. 

She absorbs Jess's polite grin as she hands a woman a half gallon of Peanut Butter Pretzel in a blue paper bag, shakes off her fears, and turns away from the window. 

At a nearby high top, that man, Snoke, is speaking with Ben. Rey doesn't really mean to, but she tunes into their conversation.

\-------

Snoke approaches Ben just as a few neighborhood couples drift off to get drinks. His smile flickers out, and he seeks to appear serious and thoughtful as Snoke sets his whiskey glass on the table.

Ben opens his mouth to ask if he's enjoying the evening when Snoke says, "I thought we had discussed what was still needed for the menu."

"I'm sorry?"

"The small plates aren't complete without dessert offerings. We had even tested all those dishes, and there were a few I had approved."

"Sir, I just didn't think, that with the goals of the menu, that they were really nece-"

"Now considering that I had already approved said desserts, I fail to understand why you chose not to include them." Ben is silent, staring at the knot of Snoke's tie. Snoke's voice goes colder, harder. "I thought I had made it clear that ignoring my guidance is very ill-advised."

Ben takes a breath, gathering every shred of confidence he can find within him, raising his eyes. "Sir, I really feel that-"

"You'll never succeed with such a glaring omission from your menu. I suppose it was stupid of me to leave you to the task, I didn't ask to sign off on the final menu, and I can see now that was a mistake." 

Ben deflates. His arms hang listlessly, his hands limp.

He thinks of all the nice things people had to say tonight, knows Snoke heard some of them. But it wasn't enough.

"Well, anything to say for yourself?" Snoke prods, leaning one long, too-thin arm on the table, free hand gesturing condescendingly. 

Ben isn't sure he knows where to take this conversation. If he sticks to his guns, insisting he knows what's best for his business, he will have made a man to whom he is very indebted very angry. And while Ben may be impulsive, he's not stupid. Instead he takes a deep breath, preparing to offer an apology with all the feigned remorse he can muster.

Before he can speak, Rey is at his elbow, smiling brightly, He blinks, confused. Stunned, for a moment.

She's never smiled at him that way. 

"Hey there Solo, you about ready to bring out the pairings?" 

Ben gapes at her, his mind reeling. In all the frantic preparation he did over the last week, did he forget something? No, no, if Rey was involved somehow in opening night, he would definitely remember.

Looking as confused as Ben feels, Snoke mutters, "Who are you? And what pairings are you discussing? What do they have to do with Ben?"

Rey manages to look bashful for a second, "Oh forgive me, Mr. Snoke, I'm Rey Johnson, the owner of Irresistible, the ice cream and novelties parlor next door." She jerks a thumb over her shoulder towards the window. Something tells Ben not to speak, which is good, because Rey keeps talking. "And well, seeing as I make only sweet foods and Ben was still finalizing the menu, we chose to collaborate on a paired flight: three whiskey samples paired individually with one of my small-batch ice cream flavors." 

Snoke stares at her, eyes narrowed, and god, maybe Rey should have gone into acting instead of business, because she lets out a tinkly laugh and glances at Ben, "I know we wanted it to be a surprise for opening night, but you could have at least told the investors!"

She reaches out a hand to slap Ben playfully on the upper arm, and that gesture is what finally startles him enough to respond. He does his best to look sheepish, glancing at the floor and rubbing the back of his neck, "I'm uh, I'm sorry sir, I know you're not the biggest fan of surprises."

Snoke lets a short, hard huff out, "You're right, I'm not. But nonetheless, it's good to hear you didn't ignore my advice and neglect this portion of the menu."

"Of course not, sir. I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to explain."

"Now if you'll excuse us, it seems like everyone's about finished with the small plates, so now would be a good time to roll out the pairings, yes?" Red adds.

Snoke steps back, sweeps a hand from Ben to Rey, and Ben glances at her, seeing the hardness in her gaze. "Rey I'm guessing you need some help carrying the canisters over?"

Rey nods happily, and Ben points towards the kitchen. They slip through, past two members of Ben's staff cleaning up, and out the rear entrance into the alley.

Before they can reach the rear entrance to Irresistible, Ben grabs Rey's shoulder. "What the hell was that?"

She grits her teeth. "I couldn't stand there and listen to him insult your business and all your hard work before you've even had a chance to prove yourself. I'm helping, here."

"Why? Why would you want to? You can't just decide to help me, I didn't ask for it."

"If I hadn't come up with that idea, what were you about to tell him?" She crosses her arms.

"That I didn't feel the focus of the business included desserts, and that during discussions with target customers, sweet things were never brought up as something they would want to see on the menu. It's not in the best interest of my distillery, financially or otherwise, to make things people won't order, and therefore, I had chosen not to do it."

"Phasma tells me he doesn't give you much creative control." She states simply, and Ben rolls his eyes. _Phasma._ What right did Rey have to know that? "He's your principal investor. You owe him a lot, and he's using that to his benefit. And you were going to outright tell him '_no_?'"

"Not outright, I had a rationale, like I just told you, I-"

"You really think a man that insistent would be swayed by your rationale?" Rey says, scoffing. "You'd be lucky if he listened long enough for you to get the words out."

"You've seen the man once!" Ben nearly yells, and Rey jumps, glancing around to be sure they're still alone and unwatched. She sighs, takes a step closer, and lowers her voice.

"Once was enough to know what he's like. Look, we don't have time to argue about this right now, much as you clearly love to start fights with me." Ben feels a hot flare of anger, opens his mouth to retort, but Rey hold up a hand barely six inches from his face, palm rigid. The words die on his tongue. "Just do this, with me, just tonight. We'll discuss the rest later."

She drops her hand, looking at him, eyes almost beseeching, and Ben runs his tongue along his upper teeth, closes his eyes, takes a breath. "Fine."

When he opens them again, he watches Rey pull the tasting card from her back pocket. "Set up forty tasting cups each: for the barrel-aged maple, the 2017 bourbon, and the blackberry. When you're finished, come meet me in my kitchen."

Ben nods, and darts back into the back of First Order, pulling a box of fresh tasting cups off the shelf of a storage closet. They're tiny things, half the size of a shot glass, and he takes a deep breath, hands unsteady.

He's filling the last dozen or so tasters when he sees Rey's foot, clad in her nice black sandal, peek into the propped door and pull it wide open. She's got her light blue apron on, a huge canister of ice cream carried in each arm, their weight cording her biceps. She drops them next to the counter where Ben's working, then mutters to him, "Come with me."

He follows her back to the kitchen at Irresistible. It's 10:30, meaning the parlor closes up in half an hour, and one of Rey's staff is in the back washing a huge bin of scoops in a giant stainless steel sink. She glances at Ben curiously, but perhaps sensing Rey's frantic energy, averts her gaze back to the sink seconds later.

Rey pulls one more canister out of the walk-in freezer, handing it to Ben, then grabs a huge white cardboard box, and jerks her head out the door. "Let's go."

Back in his kitchen, she unpacks a stack of white plates. Each of them has six little wells, a shallow cylinder perhaps two inches deep and two inches wide. "Whiskeys on top, ice creams on bottom." Rey explains, utterly focused, and Ben grunts his assent, begins filling the top row with one each of the three whiskeys she requested of him.

"What flavors did you choose?" He finally bothers to ask, as Rey peels the lids off each canister.

"Burnt cinnamon banana to go with the bourbon, blueberry balsamic to go with the blackberry whiskey, and pumpkin spice with the maple."

Ben pauses for a moment and Rey raises her eyes to his, questioning. "You make pumpkin spice ice cream?"

She shrugs. "Yeah, why?"

His eyes flit along the wall for a moment before muttering, "You call it...pumpkin _spice cream_, don't you?"

She gapes, "How did you...? Yes."

Ben stares down at her for a moment longer, then says, so quietly he's not sure Rey will hear him, "It's just a little...basic."

She definitely hears him. She whirls back to face him, scowling, and whisper yells, "Oh basic? Yeah? You think I'm a basic bitch?"

Ben fights to tamp down the laugh rising in his throat. "I never used the word bitch, thank you very much."

Rey tries to maintain her scowl as she turns back to the plates, but Ben hears her say under her breath, with a very particular inflection, "[_Ya basic_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpFWPze_nIs)."

It rings a distant bell in Ben's head. "You watch The Good Place?" 

Rey turns back to him, her scowl melting off. "Yep. Who would've thought we have something in common."

She pulls an ice cream scoop from her apron pocket, smaller than average. "Melon baller," she explains.

She lines up the three-gallon canisters in the appropriate order right to left, and then Ben watches, slightly in awe, as she serves up forty scoops of Burnt Cinnamon Banana with absurd speed and precision. She doesn't spill a single morsel, then rushes to the sink to rinse off the scoop and begins again on Blueberry Balsamic. 

When she's finished, they have forty frankly adorable plates, three tasting cups right at home in their little wells, three corresponding ice cream flavors resting comfortably beneath. Again, from that magic apron pocket, she produces a bag of tiny stainless steel spoons, and places one on the porcelain ridge between the cups and the scoops. 

They both stare for a moment, and then, without even looking at him, Rey says "Clear off the bar. Let's serve."

"Bar's already clear, I figured you would want that space."

"Perfect." Rey mutters, and loads up her left arm with three plates, grabbing a fourth in her right hand. _She must have spent some time waitressing,_ he thinks.

He follows, managing to balance two plates in each of his paw-like hands, and thirty plates takes up all the space on the surface of the bar, but Rey seamlessly anticipates that, walking past with a few plates to offer them directly to the guests. She points to different flavors, explains how they are paired, then flits to the next group and does it all again.

Ben does the same thing, albeit a little more awkwardly, but he sees the smiles on people's faces as they taste, and a few people turn to him and mention what a great idea this was. He just smiles tightly, or approximates it as best he can, and says thank you.

The one person he never thanks, though, is Rey. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conclusion: No. No shit was sorted out.
> 
> For those of you who may not know, Rey's "Ya basic" is linked to its source material.
> 
> That clip also ends with Eleanor describing the EXACT type of relationship I have built here. Irony!


	8. Chapter Preview: A Steadying Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up today feeling saucy, so even though I just updated yesterday, here is a teaser for the next chapter.
> 
> It will be posted in full next week.
> 
> Enjoy.

Rey and Finn spend two days at the National Confectioner's Conference in Las Vegas, which means Rey has to hand the keys to the parlor over to Jess for _three entire days,_ due to travel time.

It's petrifying, but Jess sends regular texts updating her on the status of the shop and each time there is a problem, all of which Jess easily resolves. The conference technically includes a third day, but most of the equipment exhibitors are gone. There are no more interesting talks or demos, and a desert city full of people gambling and drinking hits Rey a little too close to home, so they pack up Finn's car and begin the five hour drive southwest. 

Rey dozes off almost immediately. Sometimes she can't rationalize how she always has energy for what is needed at work, when deep down she knows she's almost pathologically sleep-deprived.

She's always suspected it was a cocktail of her learned perseverance and love of her business that kept her eyes open and a smile on her face.

Nonetheless, she's grateful for five hours on straight, flat roads in a slightly stuffy car, the only noise the soft folk music Finn's got playing through the stereo.

He wakes her when they pull up to the parlor. She can't seem to perk up, can't emerge from a groggy half-slumber as they get to work unloading boxes of new equipment purchased at the conference. They fill the storage closet off the kitchen, and Rey vows to herself that she'll unbox everything before the end of the week. But not right now.

"Finn, would you uh, mind taking charge tomorrow?" She calls back into the kitchen space, her voice muffled by the confines of the closet.

He doesn't reply, instead just appears in the doorway like an apparition, glaring at her suspiciously.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she defends, "I just think I need a day off."

"You've never asked for a day off in the entire time I've known you." He retorts, but Rey knows this is coming from a place of concern.

"I think..." she trails off, "I think the exhaustion of the past three years is finally catching up to me. I'm just so, so tired."

Finn's dark eyes appraise her slowly, and his face softens. He nods, and pulls her in for a hug. "It's about time you asked for something you needed."

She wants to reply to justify her devotion to her business, but she won't say anything Finn doesn't already understand, so she just takes a deep breath, and nods into his shoulder. 

He takes over the front counter for the rest of the day while she remains in the back, mixing and preparing several additional gallons of their most popular flavors. She places each canister into its respective slot in the wall freezer, pushes the door open long enough to bid Finn farewell, and then takes the back exit, walking heavily down the alley, then down the beach road.

She nearly weeps in relief when her bungalow comes into view, and when she unlocks the door she's greeted by Bebe's desperate, relieved yowling that she's home. Poe's been feeding her, but the cat doesn't care much for anyone else, including him.

Bebe climbs into bed with her for a rare cuddle, and Rey places one hand on that furry, portly orange stomach rising and falling gently. She listens to the distant echo of the waves to the sound of her own steady, slowing breathing, and slips off into sleep in a matter of seconds. 

\-------

Rey wakes in the late afternoon. She'd planned to sleep all day, but something, some rumbling downstairs, is ruining it.

Whenever the surfers come to get their gear, Rey knows to expect a moment or two of noise.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by and she can still hear the hollow scrape of boards being moved.

Finally the banging around stops. Rey sighs, rolling over and burrowing deeper into her sheets. She's just being pulled under the weight of slumber again when, from downstairs, another deep, vibrating, _thunk._

Rey throws back her blanket, her patience worn out, and storms out the door, going halfway down the stairs before yelling towards the garage, "What the hell are you doing down there?!"

She hears angry barked words, and footsteps as they round the corner of the open garage.

Fate must have decided that encountering him at work simply wasn't enough.

Because now he's standing there, right outside her home. He's wearing an unzipped wet suit.

His scowl slides into shock when he takes in the sight of her.

_Ben._


	9. A Steadying Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opening paragraph is not the same as in the preview in Chapter 8, so be sure to read that first!

Rey wakes in the late afternoon. She'd planned to sleep all day, but something, some rumbling downstairs, is ruining it.

Whenever the surfers come to get their gear, Rey knows to expect a moment or two of noise.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by and she can still hear the hollow scrape of boards being moved.

Finally the banging around stops. Rey sighs, rolling over and burrowing deeper into her sheets. She's just being pulled under the weight of slumber again when, from downstairs, another deep, vibrating, _thunk._

Rey throws back her blanket, her patience worn out, and storms out the door, going halfway down the stairs before yelling towards the garage, "What the hell are you doing down there?!"

She hears angry barked words, and footsteps as they round the corner of the open garage.

Fate must have decided that encountering him at work simply wasn't enough.

Because now he's standing there, right outside her home. He's wearing an unzipped wet suit.

His scowl slides into shock when he takes in the sight of her.

_Ben._

_Fuck._ Rey's seen pieces of his body before: his bare chest, his ass through his jeans as he bends at the knees to pick up some heavy piece of distilling equipment. She has a rudimentary understanding of his thighs from when she's seen him with his pants halfway off. 

But to see each angle and curve and plane so starkly outlined for her, by a single layer of neoprene, is...different. It gives her a new appreciation for the span of his shoulders versus that of his hips. She's reminded of the thickness of his upper arms, of the sharp jut of his calf that helps balance the thick muscle of his thigh. She often thinks derisively about how little color he wears, but she has to admit it to herself:

He looks _good_ in black. 

She feels a spike of arousal lance down through her abdomen, and she takes a steadying breath. It's been a week and a half since they hooked up at the wedding, and Rey's body seems keenly aware of the lack of contact since then. 

He's gaping at her too. Mouth parted, eyes intense. Rey recovers from the staring contest first. "What are you doing here?"

"What are_ you_ doing here?"

"I live here!" she cries, pointing up the stairs, her voice still rough from sleep, and she clears her throat, "In the bungalow."

"I rent a space for my surfboard from Maz." He crosses his arms tightly. 

"Wait, how do you know Maz?" She's more confused than ever.

"How do _you_ know Maz?" He throws back once again. She rolls her eyes.

"I met her at my summer job in high school." Rey explains, and then raises her eyebrows in a silent question.

"She delivered me when I was born. Became a family friend." He explains tersely. 

"Why aren't you at work?" She accuses next.

"Why aren't _you_ a-"

"Oh my god, stop repeating all my fucking questions back to me!" She thunders, and slams her hand down on the banister. She immediately regrets that, pain shooting up her arm, but fights to hide a grimace.

"I just...," He sighs, "needed a break. Needed to blow off some steam. Had Phasma take over for the night." She glances up and down, noticing the dark circles under his eyes, the way his normally rigid, perfect posture is hunched. She nods in understanding, and her ire drains out through her feet.

"Same here. It's my first day off and I didn't realize how much I needed it."

"Your first day off this year?" He asks, eyes widening.

She shakes her head. "My first day off ever." His eyes grow even wider.

"It's been years since you started all this, hasn't it?" She nods, and he puffs his cheeks, blowing out a breath. "How'd you handle it all this time?"

She shrugs, "I'm accustomed to extreme stress." It's out of her mouth before she can check herself, and she blushes and squirms.

Ben stares at her with a calculating gaze, but doesn't push the topic further. He nods down towards the garage.

"Sorry about all the noise. I haven't been down here in a while, been too busy with First Order. So all my stuff got shifted around and buried under other people's gear."

She blinks. Ben Solo just apologized. "It's fine."

They stand awkwardly for a moment, then she assumes the conversation is over, and turns to head back up the stairs. He disappears around the corner.

Suddenly she remembers and whirls around, jogging down a few steps. "Hey, can you bring back my ice cream sampling plates when you get a chance? I have some tastings coming up for catering events."

"Sure," he reappears. His hands drop from across his chest and land on his hips, "I'll bring them right over tomorrow."

"Unless you want to keep some of them and continue doing the pairings? I could have Finn bring over a few half gallons of those flavors that I cho-"

"No." Ben says, a little too loudly, and a little too emphatically. Rey's head jerks back a little.

"Okay..."

"I don't want to continue doing the pairings."

Rey puts her hands up in surrender."Jesus, okay. It's fine, I get it."

"No, _you don't_," he mumbles, so softly she barely hears it.

"Yes, I do."

"Oh really, Rey? What do you 'get?' Tell me."

She sucks in a deep breath, and takes this as her cue to unload. 

"I get that you're a stubborn asshole who rejects all help, all ideas from others, even good ones." She comes down one step. "I understand you haven't yet realized that success, especially in this industry, is dependent upon taking advantage of good opportunities when they present themselves." Another step.

"I'm not-" He interjects, his face growing red.

"And sometimes those opportunities will involve other, more established people." One more step. By now, she's only two stairs above him, which puts her right at eye-level. "But that's not your deal, or whatever, and-"

"Quit making so many assumptions about what I think." He runs a hand through his hair, struggling to control his anger. "You have no way of knowing what's led to how I feel, and I would appreciate it if you-"

"You want to know what _I_ really think?" She says more lowly, softly, and his eyes dart down to her mouth, just for a second.

She chooses to ignore it.

His brow knits as he assesses her, but eventually, he nods.

"I think you're being overly cautious. Because you're scared of involving another person like Snoke." Ben inhales, and stares down at the worn wooden steps. "Snoke offered you help at a cost that's completely unfair. You should never have to sacrifice your creative vision. I think you're afraid of letting someone else lure you in with false promises, so you're denying everyone who tries to help you. You won't let yourself trust anymore."

Ben pinches the bridge of his nose. There's a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the tide and the rumble of a passing car.

His voice is soft, and croaks a little. "You're getting warmer. But you still don't have the whole story. If you knew it, you wouldn't trust anyone either."

She shrugs. "If you knew what I've seen, you'd think I don't have much reason to trust people either." On an uncontrollable instinct, she reaches out and moves his hand away from his face. "Ben, look at me." Slowly, those fathomless eyes raise to meet hers.

_Trust, me, please trust me. Make me feel worthy, like I ask everyone to._

"I'd never use my offer of help against you." He nods, she watches his throat as he swallows, and then she continues, nearly whispering. "People liked the pairings, Ben."

"No." He says softly, his eyes sliding shut again.

"Even just for a few months, to draw in the adult customer base from Irresistible. And besides, Snoke liked the idea, this might be a way to keep him off your ba-"

"I don't want to talk about Snoke anymore, Rey." His voice is rising with every word. "I don't want to talk about First Order, I don't want to talk about accepting help from others, and I don't want to fight with you, at all!"

"Fuck, fine. What do you want to do instead, huh?" She stares at the wild look in his eyes. 

She figures out _what he wants to do instead_ a few seconds before he does it. And she doesn't stop him.

He leans forward and captures her mouth with his. The kiss is hard and shallow, and Rey reaches out, tangling her fingers in his hair.

_Accept my help, you stubborn idiot man._

If he would swallow his pride and fear about Snoke and just take what she's offering, she could make all of this easier for him. 

He's made it clear he won't accept.

There's one surefire way to work through her anger. 

She pulls back a fraction to readjust the angle of their embrace, and when she does she feels the fullness of Ben's lips: soft, practically begging for her to sink her teeth in.

So she does, just a little.

He moans in response, a sound so low Rey feels it in her sternum where she's pressed against him. She wraps one leg around his hips, holding onto his shoulders for balance, and he grabs her bare thigh, fingers creeping up to nudge under the hem of her sleep shorts. 

She pulls back to ask him to come upstairs, but before she can get a word out his other hand seeks her anchoring leg like a magnet, lifting her off the steps. What was to become her words turns into an undignified whimper as she leaves the ground.

He carries her up all those steps as though she weighs less than a bag of groceries, and Rey would comment on that, maybe, but he's drilled into her with his gaze, his eyes darting all over her face but inevitably meeting her own every few seconds. He pushes open the screen door so swiftly the rusty hinges make a deafening squeal of protest. He blinks, startled, and Rey can't help but let a laugh bubble up.

The door sounded offended, almost.

Ben huffs out a tiny laugh too, Rey feels it air against her face. He backs into the open doorway and surveys the room briefly, expression unchanged, then hurries over to Rey's bed, dropping her unceremoniously onto the sheets and then staring down at her.

He gets distracted for a moment, by the sight of the beach through the windows above her bed. "Wow, what a view."

"Thanks. It's worth the tricky plumbing. And noisy surfers downstairs." His eyes dart down to her, and she tries to contain a grin. He reaches for one ankle and yanks her to the foot of the bed. 

"I said I was sorry." He whines, and presses his thumb into the ball of her foot. 

"That doesn't magically resolve my annoyance, though." She pulls her foot from his grasp, only to place it gently against his chest. 

She drags it down to his stomach, causing his breath to quicken, and he closes his eyes, "You're not annoyed with me anymore."

Her foot reaches the level of his hips, and she points her toes, tracing the bulge there, feeling as it hardens. "How do you know?" She murmurs back, and his eyes drift open, looking soft and unfocused. 

He turns his gaze to her, and whispers, "Just do."

For a moment, Rey's foot stills, her heart stutters. _He's right._ It's disarming, to feel so seen. What else might he see, things he doesn't tell her he notices?

A familiar _mrow_ sounds from near the ceiling, and Rey looks up to see Bebe glaring down at them from a cedar beam that stretches across the width of the room.

"That's my cat." Bebe leaps awkwardly down to the back of the couch, then onto the stack of board games by the TV, and Rey warns, "Be careful. She doesn't like people besides me very much, and if you're too close she'll probably las-"

Bebe jumps up on the bed and passes under Rey's leg to rub against Ben's hand, already purring.

"You were saying?" He says smugly, scratching Bebe between her ears as her purr deepens. Rey watches in horrified fascination as he reaches for the robust curve of Bebe's belly, stroking up towards her front legs. Even Rey has a few battle scars from trying to pet Bebe's stomach, and that was when the feline was lolling on her back in the middle of the floor. 

"You just gonna keep petting my cat, or are you gonna return to our scheduled programming?" She presses her foot into his crotch once again, stroking down between his legs.

He swallows hard, but then his mouth quirks, and he tries to smother some sort of laugh. He schools his face but it breaks again, and he turns his head away from her. 

"What?" She demands.

"So basically what you're asking is, am I-" he hesitates, "am I going to keep touching this pussy or," he breaks down into laughter, "or am I going to touch your pussy?" 

Rey sits in shocked silence for a moment, and then a bark of loud laughter escapes from her, which startles Bebe off the bed. It's followed by a stream of giggles, which Ben echoes, and she can't contain it, gasping for breath, just getting a wisp of air in before she loses it again. Her throat and stomach hurt with the force of her laughter, and she can see Ben wiping tears out of his eyes as he struggles to compose himself too.

When they finally quiet, she curls her feet around his knees and pulls, until his legs are flush with the bed. "Hell, who knew Ben Solo could tell a joke?"

"Don't go spreading that around, I have a reputation to maintain."

"As what, an unfeeling monster who loathes all things light and good?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Rey grins again, and he hauls himself onto the bed, crowding her in, his knees around hers, his hands on either side of her shoulders.

He leans in to kiss her, longer and slower compared to when they were outside, and she sighs into it, gently sliding her tongue into his mouth. Little giggles keep erupting from her around their kiss.

Rey pushes him onto his back, running a hand down his chest, before using both hands to pull the wetsuit down off his shoulders, turning it inside out as it peels off his arms. She has to step off the bed, plant her feet, and yank _hard_ to pull it off his hips. Ben plays into it, rolling onto his stomach, holding onto the slats of her headboard and pretending to scream in agony as she tugs. She's laughing so hard she starts to lose her grip, He helps, pushing foot against leg and vice versa until the suit's barely clinging to his ankles.

Rey removes it once and for all, uttering a "phew," and they're quiet for a moment.

Ben looks at her over his shoulder, catches her staring, and rolls to his back. He's half hard, and he reaches to palm himself as his eyes rake over her body, but she stops him by clambering up to sit astride his hips. 

She lowers herself slowly, until she can feel him between her legs. The fabric of her shorts is a little rucked up, so she feels him half on her skin and half through the cotton, but it's good, it's just the tease she was looking for, and she lets out a soft moan as she starts to grind her hips.

"You like this, don't you?" Ben asks her, running a hand over her t-shirt and tweaking her nipples through the fabric. 

She gasps as he squeezes harder and mutters, "What?"

He thrusts up at her and groans, "Rutting through our clothes. We've done this before."

For a moment Rey is thrown by that, by the realization that they've done this enough times now that they have a _before._

She nods frantically, balancing her forearms on his chest, and his hands skim under the hem of her big, loose t-shirt. "Sometimes the promise of something is just as great as the thing itself."

He's silent for a long moment, so she opens her eyes to find him still thrusting, still stroking, but it's like his mind is dissociated from his body, because even as he's moving, he's staring at her, and...

...she would swear there's something other than lust in his eyes.

There isn't space in Rey's brain to properly analyze that, so instead she just grunts and covers his hands with hers. Together they pull her shirt up, inch by agonizing inch, and she watches as his eyes rivet to the incremental progress.

She slows as they reach her breasts, revealing the swell of their lower half for a long moment before continuing to lift up. His hands linger so gently on her shoulders as she pulls the shirt over her head. He covers both breasts with his hands and mutters, "Come closer."

She leans down onto him again, changing the pace of her hips to a slow, dragging rhythm, and he tilts his face up, gives a tentative lick to one nipple, and Rey rushes to clutch the back of his head, to push him closer, wordlessly beg him to do it again.

He obliges, and soon it's all in harmony, her hips rolling, his tongue seeking, her fingers tugging at the hair on the nape of his neck. It's good, Rey can feel the friction teasing her clit, _so good_, but it's not what she wants anymore. 

She sits up, his mouth disengaging from her breast with an obscene sound, and reaches for her shorts.

Ben tries to switch their positions, but she's back on top of him in a second, pushing one hand hard in the center of his chest until he complies and lays back down. She hold his gaze as her hand trails over and traces one of his own nipples. She wonders if anyone's ever done this to him before, because his eyes widen and he lets out a soft, high noise he doesn't look capable of making.

His hand drifts between her legs, where his cock is nestled among the folds of her, and he taps her clit two times, then presses harder on the third. In contrast to his tiny moan, Rey lets out an absolutely guttural noise, nearly yelling, "Like that," and throws her head back.

She reaches down blindly for him, the length slicked up from her own moisture, and holds him gently, maddeningly, as she sinks down on him. He has to stop touching her clit for a moment, because each time he does she clenches, and that makes it harder for him to fit.

As soon as he's in, though, with a shared sigh his hand drifts back, drawing slow circles over the hard little bud and watching her face. She groans again, leans back on her hands, and starts rotating her hips, opposite to how his finger moves. That does it for him, because his breathing grows sharper, more irregular, and when she opens her eyes he's staring down at where their bodies meet, and Rey doesn't know what comes over her, but she speaks.

"You like looking at it? Where you disappear inside me?" It sends a bolt of pleasure through her, even as she's shocked that she said it.

"Yes, Rey. Riding me so good." He says back, and the depth of his voice only spurs her on. She wants to hear more of it.

"It's because you make me so wet, Ben. Just the sight of you makes me wet. Because I know you can give me what I need."

Her body begins to climb and throb.

"Take it," he practically spits, jaw clenching, free hand holding her hip in a bruising grip. "Take what you need, what you want, I'll give it to you."

"You gonna give it to me?" She says, spurring him on, and he moans, fingers digging in to her ass, feet flat so he can pump up into her, and his hand speeds up, relentless on her clit, causing a strangled cry to die in her throat, and she tries to tell him she's close, but the words are gone, her voice is gone, so she's silent when her climax crests, when her body clenches and bears down and tries to suck him further in.

One hand thrown out against the wall prevents her from falling on top of him as she rides it out. She keeps thinking it's over but he's still thrusting into her, chasing his own release now, so new waves of aching pleasure keep hitting her. She squeezes her eyes shut.

Finally he presses up with a soft, long shudder, his quietness seeming to echo hers, and she lets go of the wall, sitting fully on him, reveling in the feeling for a moment. 

"This is the first time I've ever seen you naked," he observes, and her eyes crack open. His hand slides down, past her belly button, just barely skimming where the thatch of short, dark hair starts.

Some insecure part of her wants to find a subtle way to ask what he thinks, now that he's seen all of her.

But she recognizes that whatever they have between them isn't...like that. So she hums an acknowledgement and takes stock of the way he's gone soft inside her, then slowly moves away, padding across the room to her bathroom and ducking inside to pee. 

While she sits, she feels _the feeling_, the bone-deep satisfaction and weariness she's reluctant to admit she only gets after an orgasm.

Only after one with Ben.

She shoves that thought aside, rinses her hands, and lets out a mammoth yawn.

When she returns to the bed she finds him tangled among her mismatched floral sheets, his pale body looking even more stark against all the colors. He looks like a modern Adonis, hips tilted and abs twisted in a way that almost looks posed and purposeful.

But Rey knows it isn't, because he's completely, utterly, 100% asleep.

She takes a nervous breath. She wonders if she should wake him up, if he wants to leave and go surfing, if he has other things he needs to do today. 

But he looks so...peaceful. Not like himself at all.

The angry energy that usually thrums around him is gone, replaced by a face gone slack and a body looking heavy and loose. 

She can't bring herself to do it. Even if he wakes up and gets angry at her for letting him sleep.

Even if he regrets walking through this door at all. 

She gingerly slides into the empty side of the bed, but he doesn't stir.

Rey realizes this is the first time in her life someone's slept beside her.

That sends a pang of something sharp and unwelcome through her chest.

They're not close enough to touch, but Rey can feel the heat radiating off his body, enough so that she doesn't need a blanket, and she drifts off to the sound of his breathing, in time with the distant waves.

\-------

When Ben wakes, he first registers two things. 

First, he can hear the ocean, which means he isn't at home, and second, something furry is sitting on his chest.

He blinks his eyes open and sees a squat ball of orange fur sitting on him.

Right, that's Bebe. Rey's cat.

Who must be laying on him, because he's still here.

In Rey's bed.

_Oh shit. _

_Rey. _

He turns to see her, face smushed into a pillow, tendrils of hair spread across her forehead. Her mouth is wide open. Her skin, various shades of tan but all of it somewhat golden, seems to go on for miles. Ben realizes the freckles spread across her nose are echoed on her shoulders and on the backs of her thighs. He can see her long, lithe muscles through the skin of her back, He feels a compulsion to trace them. 

To distract himself, he squints across the room at the kitchen clock and realize he only slept for about an hour. His head flops down and he strokes Bebe's back absently.

The events of the afternoon slowly come back to him, and with it, a growing sense of nervousness, and confusion.

_What magic spell came over them?_ Cracking jokes? Laughing hysterically?

Letting the anger and resentment and mistrust between them vanish into nothing?

The slow way she had taken off her shirt? _The dirty talk,_ Jesus.

The way he had let her stay in control the entire time? He's never done that before.

He wanted to watch her pleasure play out above him. 

It wasn't that angry, frantic, easily satisfied lust they'd usually slake upon each other. 

It was...seduction. 

The mere thought of it makes his cock start to swell again, and Ben may really, really like having sex with Rey, but getting aroused in this proximity to an animal is something he can't cope with, so he stops petting Bebe and glares at her, hoping she can sense his telepathic communication.

She seems to, because she lets out an annoyed sort of trill and jumps off of him, thunking her rotund body to the ground with a graceless leap.

Ben grins to himself, and then turns back to glance again at the sleeping form beside him. All her bright, quick energy has vanished in sleep. 

He notices, the same way he did on the stairs, that she looks exhausted. She needs the rest.

He convinces himself that trying to get up, maneuver his way back into the wet suit and leave is more likely to wake her than if he stays. So he settles back in, head still turned her way, and closes his eyes.

\---------

Rey wakes up feeling hot instead of just pleasantly warm. She can feel a damp, thin layer of sweat in the creases of her neck. And in the crook of her elbow.

She and Ben are completely tangled together. Her face is lain on his bicep and pressed into his chest. His head is leaned down, huffing warm breath into her hair. She's got one arm curled up in front of her and the other thrown around his waist. He has one broad hand pressed against her back, and their feet are in a stacked pile, just barely hanging off the bed.

Rey's never wanted to both scream in someone's face and press against them all in the same day, but she supposes there's a first time for everything. 

When she peeks over at the clock in the kitchen, it's barely been two hours since they fell asleep.

The buzzing in her head, the baseline anxiety that drives her to always come up with a new flavor idea, mop the floors one more time, solicit more feedback from the staff, check the budget once again...it's quieted.

In fact, it's silent. The thought of Jess handling the parlor doesn't make her tense up at all. The realization of the approaching winter, and the potential decline in sales, doesn't make her heart race. Instead she takes a deep breath of Ben's smell: sweat and a pine-y deodorant, and the wood smoke she now knows they infuse into some of their whiskey. 

_No one's ever held her like this. _

In the corner of her eye she can see a small mottled pink mark on his side, and when she lets her thumb trace it, it feels hard, like the scar tissue runs deep. He must be sensitive there, because he snuffles a breath and shifts a little, making a tiny questioning noise, and she holds her breath, cataloging all the places where they touch.

He goes still for a moment, and she thinks he may still be asleep, but then he mutters in a rough growl, "Is this all right?"

She takes a long, slow breath, and it streams across his bare skin, which appears to make him quiver a little. "Yeah," she says, right before she runs out of air.

She inhales a tiny sip and whispers, "It's good."

He goes quiet and she feels his body slowly go slack again.

So she shuts her eyes, listens to his breathing again, and drifts away.

\-------

When Ben wakes again it's not the 'half-conscious, middle-of-your-rest' type of wake up, it's the 'gnawing-hunger, please-get-up-now-before-I-start-digesting-my-own-organs' type. At some point Rey's turned over in her sleep, and they're spooned together.

Their bodies are touching at every point possible. He can feel the rise and fall of her chest this way, and frankly he's amazed she can't feel the growling of his stomach against her spine.

He eases himself away from her and she stays asleep.

He surveys his options.

He doesn't have any clothes with him, he drove from home in his wet suit so he wouldn't have to change at the beach, so it's not like he can run out and get something without showing up to the market looking crazy. But he knows he'll be irritable in about twenty minutes if he doesn't eat something.

He _could_ just go home.

He looks back at the tired woman in her messy bed.

_You just fucked her in her bed, then refused to leave her alone by falling asleep._ _It would be rude to go without saying goodbye._

He admits that if Rey didn't object to him holding her while she slept, she probably won't object to a raid of her pantry.

Soon enough, he realizes there isn't much to raid. _What does she live on?_ She must eat out a lot, he supposes.

He collects everything usable and places it on the counter, then takes stock and figures out what he can put together, periodically glancing back to be sure he hasn't disturbed her rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey did you finish this chapter and you were like "what the fuck just happened" because if so, same


	10. Pinprick Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who were blowing party horns (ha, horns. "horny." ANYWAYS) at the turning point in the last chapter, prepare to feel...confused but hopeful, maybe.

Rey hears clinking. It sounds like something touching glass. Before she opens her eyes she remembers Ben, everything that's happened today, and her face immediately burns in embarrassment.

_Is this all right?_

_Yeah. It's good. _She had rasped.

_Good?_ What the hell, Johnson.

She assumes from the noise that he must still be here. She sits up to see him naked in the kitchen, stirring a bowl of something.

Or she assumes he's naked, since he's hidden by the kitchen island at the level of his hipbones. She takes a long moment to let her eyes skip over the small details of his body: that round pink scar on his left side, the cut of muscle above his hip, a purpling bruise on his collarbone she realizes she must have sucked there with her mouth.

"What are you doing?" She croaks, and reaches for a half-full glass of water on the windowsill, taking a huge gulp. 

"I'm starving," he explains, and Rey sees a bowl of...something before him, but can't identify it. Rey's stomach yawns, feeling hollow, and she sits up more. 

"Can I have some?" She asks, sight unseen. God knows she isn't picky. 

He nods and she watches him search her kitchen for bowls and spoons. When he approaches the bed, she can see something that looks like rice, and some...vegetables? Where did he get those?

"Did you go to the store?" She asks, incredulous.

"Remarkably, no, you actually had enough here to put together some semblance of a meal. It wasn't easy, though."

"What is it?"

"Orzo pasta salad."

"Break it all down for me." She insists.

"A box of Orzo, can of chicken broth, a frozen pea and carrot mix, an onion that was already sprouting its progeny, some olive oil, and a half a carton of feta cheese."

"I can't believe you found all that." She admits honestly, and groans involuntarily when she takes her first bite. It's served cold, and after hours of sweating in his arms it's perfect. 

"Yeah." He takes a few bites, then asks her as he's still chewing, "Rey, what do you normally eat?"

"Oh you know. PB and Js, pasta and Parmesan, chips and hummus, spoonful of peanut butter. Plenty of stuff."

"You only mentioned four things, and two of them involve peanut butter."

"It's good for you. It has protein."

"Sure." He sits down on the mattress. "But Skippy also has tons of added sugar, and hydrogenated oils and shelf-stabilizers."

She finally looks up at him. "What's your point?"

"On an average night, say on a Sunday, what do you make for dinner?"

She just keeps blinking at him, not wanting to repeat the list she just gave.

"Oh Rey, you cannot be serious." He groans, and lolls his head in a big, dramatic circle. 

"What? I don't have a lot of time for that! I eat lot of the stuff at work, and that fills me up. And, besides, I make desserts! I'm just not that versed in cooking savory foods."

"Then learn! You're clearly smart enough!" He exclaims, shoving a huge bite of orzo into his mouth, and she rolls her eyes.

"I think there was a compliment in there somewhere, so thanks very much."

They sit in silence for a long moment, and Rey finally breaks it, tentatively. "Didn't I hear you say at opening night that you like The Good Place?"

His eyes dart over to her, assessing. "Yep." He says around a mouthful of food.

"Want to um...watch some?"

_Please don't make me be alone right now._

His wary gaze persists for a moment, and Rey wants to squirm. "Sure." He nods, and she hands him her bowl for a moment. She crawls to the end of the bed, and reaches out to the TV table, preparing to turn the lazy susan. She looks back at him, ready to proudly and dramatically reveal the genius of her idea to set it up this way, and Ben's staring at her ass.

"Ben. Eyes up here, idiot."

"Sorry," he says, not sounding the least bit regretful, "it's just there. Naked, begging to be looked at."

"It's not. It's asking politely for you to look at my face, because I'm trying to show you something cool."

It works. "What's cool?" He cranes, trying to see past her. 

With a flick of her wrist the round tray rotates 180 degrees til the TV faces them, and she grins. 

"Wow. Clever." Ben concedes, and sits back, getting comfortable. 

They start at the beginning of season 2. They laugh at a lot of the same moments. Rey can't help but notice that Ben seems to relish the scenes with the demons a little too much. 

Two episodes in, he slings an arm around her shoulders while they watch, toying with a piece of hair that's resting there, and something about it startles Rey out of this reverie.

_What are they doing?_ Sitting watching TV, like they're a normal couple? Not even a couple, any two people who have sex and also get along? 

Ninety percent of their interactions they're at each other's throats, their arguments are never resolved, and the other ten percent they're furiously tearing each other's clothes off, using the other person's body to release the crescendo of anger and stubbornness they had just built.

Suddenly she wonders. _Did they ever do that on purpose? __Did they ever start a fight just so they could end it by touching each other?_

Rey thinks back. She can't deny the way he makes her body feel. 

She feels like she didn't, but she can't be sure. Her relationship with Ben, if they can even call it that...she feels like she doesn't understand her own motives anymore.

In her life she's had sex with a few people, and she's outright hated a few people, but she's never have both experiences, as well as a dozen other feelings, wrapped up in the same man.

_And why was today different?_ The buildup was the same: valid argument that devolves into something petty, both people indignant that the other refuses to agree to their point, and then the follow up where they fuck it out. Except...

This fuck was _not_ like the rest.

She's never before wanted to clutch Ben close to her as she bore down on him.

Never wanted to catalog his reactions as she slowly revealed her skin to him.

Never asked filthy questions to hear him speak of how he wants her. 

She's not sure what that means, that she was driven to do such different things this time.

But it felt good, it felt right.

Rey's had so few things in her life that made her feel a sense of rightness. Choosing Finn as her business partner. Trusting Maz as a mentor. Opening the storefront. Her friendship with Rose. Other than that, she hasn't had many experiences, made many choices, that she felt were unequivocally good.

But today, and _only_ today, she felt that way with Ben. 

So she decides to ignore the tangled web of _How???_ and _Why???_ and _What?!!_ swirling through her mind and just ride out the rightness of this thing until it blows up in her face, which she has a tiny pinprick feeling it will. 

She puts her bowl to the side, pulls her knees to her chest, and forces her mind to focus on Tahani's latest joke, giggling softly and feeling the rumble of Ben's laugh next to her.

\-------

It keeps happening. 

They get forced together by sheer proximity at work, and an argument begins, and they end up in the storage room at First Order, usually. It's lined with extra whiskey casks which have made it pretty soundproof. Occasionally, if it's very late or very early and they're confident there's no one else around, they'll head up to the office, because there's a shag rug that isn't horrible to lay on. 

They never discuss it. It's like they have an understanding now, an unspoken agreement that the lingering, the holding each other and watching TV that day at Rey's apartment, were an anomaly. 

Sometimes they begin fighting and stay angry and frantic, almost distant, through every caress and moan, with rough hands and little eye contact. Ben might tuck himself back in and leave the office while Rey's still getting her breath back on the rug.

Other times it's softer. She'll catch his gaze through the window and jerk her head towards the back of the building. He'll meet her at the foot of the stairs and she'll capture his lips with hers before he's even spoken. Those times are all dragging touches and laughs smothered into one another's shoulders.

But either way, as soon as their climax has crested and the lust has evaporated...they drift immediately apart, coming back to themselves again. Stubborn, and prideful, each in their own ways, which it seems will keep them eternally opposed. Rey stops trying to get Ben to talk about this, and Ben stops pushing her away quite so fiercely.

It's a strange, uneasy dynamic. It only feels easy when their hands are on each other. 

But two people, each lonely in ways they refuse to articulate, will take it.

Once, when Hux is doing inventory in the storage room, Ben's kissing Rey's neck behind the dumpster.

"Come to the kitchen with me." She whispers, breath already ragged. "We can make it to the supply closet. I...highly doubt this will take long." Ben muffles a laugh into her collarbone, but it cuts off when she squeezes his incredibly hard dick through his jeans, and he can't deny that no, it probably won't take much.

He licks a stripe up her throat just before she pulls away and drags him behind her, into the kitchen door of Irresistible. The door up ahead is still flapping back and forth, Finn having just gone through to the parlor, and Rey whisper yells "GO, GO, GO!"

They dart over to the closet. Ben gets there first, longer legs and all that, and throws the door open.

He immediately falls. Careens into a jumble of boxes, with sharp cardboard corners. "_Ow_, fuck." 

Rey comes in behind him, skidding to a stop just before falling on top of him, which would have further impaled him in ten different spots.

"Rey, what the hell is all this?" He says, speaking into the floor.

"Sorry. I am SO sorry. This is all the equipment from the conference Finn and I went to last month, and I haven't unpacked any of my purchases yet."

She reaches in and shoves one hand under his armpit, helping him get up, and he brushes nonexistent lint off himself. She's desperately stifling a giggle. "Something funny, Johnson?"

"I mean, the sight of you sprawled helplessly got me pretty good." 

"I'll show you helpless," he promises darkly, trying to kick the boxes further in, just enough for them to close the closet door behind them.

But then they both hear Finn's voice coming from the parlor, growing louder, so they sprint back out to the alley.

"Guess we're gonna have to take a rain check on this one." Rey says, and Ben doesn't miss the longing gaze she aims at his hips.

He squints and looks around, hands on his hips. "Wait here."

A minute later, he reverses his 4-Runner into the alley, pulling all the way down to the back of First Order. Rey just stares at him through the passenger window, so he reaches over and throws open the door. "Get in."

She complies, reaching for her seat belt, but he turns the engine off, locks the doors, and his hand goes to the fly on his cords.

"What are you doing?" Rey asks sharply, and he stills, looking over at her.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Unbuttoning your pants."

"Yep. Correct."

"Why?"

He glances around the car as though to say, _Are you hearing this shit?_ "I don't see how we can have sex if my pants are still on."

"You want to have sex? In here?" Rey squeals in shock, and glances around the deserted alley.

There's a long, still moment of staring at each other.

Then suddenly Rey's in motion, unbuttoning her own pants, pushing them down before grumbling because she has to get her stupid hiking boots off, and Ben asks her why she even wears those, when there are a million shoes in the world that would be perfectly adequate for-

His voice chokes off when he watches her hands skim her taut, freckled thighs to pull her jeans down, and he can see where her underwear's gotten twisted up from all the squirming, and the color is rising in her cheeks. He shudders.

His hand's already on his open fly, so he just eases in and gives himself a few slow, dragging strokes. 

"Hey!" She nearly yells, and he jumps. "Hands off. That's my job." She tries to maintain that serious face but snorts, and then so does he, and laughter is still tittering between them as he pushes his seat all the way back and she climbs over the console, and they finally slot together.

There's more reason than ever for their usual sense of urgency, and Ben didn't realize just how much it would turn him on, to think they might get caught. To think that after keeping this huge crazy secret that_ this_ would be how someone found out: the two of them unable to keep their hands off each other, jammed into his car in broad daylight, willing to take this risk just to get at each other's skin. 

He whispers as much to Rey and she moans, and urges him to help her, get them there faster, so his thumb starts swirling over her clit, and suddenly the words spill out of her.

"I don't want anyone else to know. This is mine. And yours. Just us." 

If it had only been the first sentence, Ben might have felt ashamed. 

But her last few words are feral, possessive in a way he never expected. He nods fervently, presses at the juncture of her legs a little harder, grinds out tight, small circles, and feels her body climbing, her hands fisted in his hair desperately. 

He whispers back, "Just us." 

It ignites her, and she tightens around him, a long series of short, high whimpers punctuating her orgasm, and for Ben's sake, he knows, she keeps her hips moving. And it's that sight, of her abs still tensing and hips rocking as she fights through her pleasure, that sets him off. He feels all the tension in his body hit a breaking point and then rush out as he comes, draining him in three long waves, and he comes down slowly. He drags his fingers over the spot where her ass meets her hip, over and over, as their breathing slows. 

She gives him one last kiss, glancing around the alley once more and shaking her head in disbelief. The coast is clear.

She flops back into her seat, and Ben watches as she shimmies into her clothes and boots again, taking the time to retie them perfectly, and he gently reminds her to fix her hair. 

He's still recovering when she darts out of the car and back into Irresistible's kitchen. Ben starts the engine, and as he pulls out of the alley, he tries to repress the recurring, persistent thought.

_Just us._

\-------

Rey suddenly realizes the window boxes at Irresistible haven't been watered in days. 

It's not the end of the world, it's all daisies and succulents, but after tending them so carefully since before they even opened the shop, she's grown a little protective. 

She bustles out with a rusty watering can and savors the warmth of the late afternoon sun on the back of her neck. She brushes dirt away and collects stray leaves as she goes.

"Miss Johnson, fancy seeing you here." A cold, rough voice behind her intones. Befuddled, she turns,

There's that investor of Ben's, _Snoke,_ looking as slimy and unsettling as he did the first time she saw him. She forces a sarcastic smile onto her face and chimes, "Well I do own this business, so I suppose it's not too unexpected."

Snoke's laugh sounds like something canned in a factory as opposed to made by a human. 

"And how is the business these days?" He asks, arms clasped behind his back, leaning against the parlor's red door frame.

"Oh fine, thank you." He seems to be waiting for more information, so Rey digs for something unimportant she's willing to divulge to him. He doesn't deserve anything more. "Since winter's drawing closer, we've started shifting some of our focus to classes, and private events. Particularly my partner Finn's baking classes, since those confections are more popular in the colder months."

Snoke's eyebrows -or, Rey realizes, where his eyebrow hairs _should_ be- raise. "Clever. It's important that you understand the seasonality of your industry." 

She nods, unwilling to verbally reward him for stating the obvious.

"And this Finn you mentioned, he's your...partner?"

Something in his tone makes Rey stiffen. "Uh, yes. He and I have known each other since high school, and we created the plans for Irresistible while he was finishing pastry school."

"Hmm. So he's your business partner?" Snoke clarifies, and Rey's grip on the watering can tightens.

"Well, I have retained majority ownership, but yes. We have always made all creative and financial decisions together."

"And he's...only your partner in... that capacity?" Rey flinches in anger, and she sets her can primly down on one of the outdoor tables, crossing her arms.

"Mr. Snoke, I fail to see how this line of questioning is appropriate for someone you barely know." 

"That's exactly it, Rey. I barely know you. Only trying to learn a little more." He shrugs in what she supposes is supposed to be a casual way. It only highlights the gauntness of his figure, and certainly doesn't counteract the oiliness of his voice.

"You're more than welcome to read the bio on our website if this wasn't enough of a get-to-know-you." She offers, shaking the can to see how much water remains, and he laughs as though she's made a joke.

"Very well. Have you seen Benjamin around?" He asks, and glances over at First Order, one of the oak doors propped open. 

"No, I haven't. But I have seen both Hux and Phasma." She supplies, and Snoke makes a wordless sound of dissatisfaction.

"Speaking of Solo, how is the pairing with you going?" He turns back to her.

_Pairing...with her? She and Solo? They aren't a pair. What?_

Rey flounders for a moment, then, _oh._

_Oh, right._ What happened at opening night. 

"Oh. We've uh...we've put them on hold, just for a little while, while Ben and I test all the new autumn flavors to decide which go best."

She holds her breath. They already rolled out the autumn flavors.

Two of them were included in the pairing _at_ opening night, but she remembers Snoke didn't try any of it, didn't seem to pay much attention at all once he had been placated by knowing they were offering a dessert, as he had insisted. 

"Good. A fresh batch of offerings will be sure to keep customers interested." He says, and she fights mightily not to roll her eyes. Does he not realize the inane nature of his own commentary? If she hadn't gotten to know Ben better, and still believed him to lack self-awareness, he and Snoke would seem like the perfect match.

She stands there a moment longer, but with nothing else to say, turns back to the flower box and tips the can. 

"Best of luck with the fall season, Miss Johnson," Snoke calls as he strolls down to the distillery. "Best to focus on the needs of your own venture, perhaps."

_What?_

She glances up at him, but he's already disappearing into First Order, and as she finishes watering, Rey can make neither heads nor tails of his odd, unsettling comment.

\-------

Rey's halfway through cleaning her bathroom late on a Sunday night, when there's a knock at the door. 

She tenses. She so rarely gets foot traffic and when she does, it's often just an Amazon delivery or a surfer asking for help with the finicky padlock downstairs. 

But not at 11 p.m. 

Which is why her hand is drifting to the knife block when a familiar, low voice says tentatively, "Rey?"

She hears his footsteps begin to retreat and practically lunges across the room, throwing the door open. 

"Ben?" His hair is burnished in the porch light as he turns back around.

His eyes scan her sweatpants and bralette, her hair thrown into a haphazard bun, and despite Ben having seen her in a dozen states of deshabille she crosses her arms over her chest, feeling awkward. 

"I'm sorry." Her eyes dart up to look at him, confused. He doesn't sound sorry, he sounds furious. His voice is loud, and a sliver of her is worried he'll disturb her neighbors. "I just had this huge fight with Snoke about the rest of his investment capital, and I was so upset I just...stormed out. And before I even realized what I was doing I was driving here, and I didn't even think about it, I just walked up, and. I know there's nothing you can do to help. I'm...not sure why I came here." His voice trails off, quiet by the end, and shoves his fists in his pockets, staring at the planks of the landing.

She remembers her own unsettling conversation with Snoke the other day.

He takes a step back. "Just forget I did this, and I guess I'll see y-"

"Ben." 

"What?" He snaps, baring his teeth a little, in that way he does. He opens his hand, fidgets with the loop on his khakis. 

But when she pushes the door open further, he stills. His eyes widen.

She thinks of all the things she isn't saying:

_Stop apologizing._

_I know why you're here._

_I need this too, it's been five days since last time._

_I saw a 4Runner today at the Aldi and it turned me on, what the hell have you done to me?_

But she stays silent. She lets the creak of the hinges do the talking for her.

His eyes follow the door, and then he snaps into motion. Rey backs herself against the door as soon as it shuts behind them, the blinds over the small window whacking her in the back of the head, and Ben hums unhappily at that, slipping a hand around to rub through her hair. She pushes him gently back towards her bed, and they take off their clothes side by side, clinically, not even looking at each other. 

But when Ben insistently pulls the sheet over them and cages Rey in with his body, it's all warm and close and maximum skin on skin. Rey feels surrounded, subsumed by him, by the langorous pace of his hips and the way he can't seem to choose between kissing her neck and looking at her, gauging all her responses to every change in angle or new touch. 

He sought her out, not even after a fight between them, but after a fight with someone else. He made the last vulnerable move, so Rey decides she can allow herself a brush of vulnerability too. 

Which is why, when it's over, she wraps her limbs around him. She's not sure if he would have tried to get up, tried to leave, but this way, she'll never know.

They fall asleep like that.

\-------

Rey's reviewing next month's orders for their suppliers, jotting down a note to ask Rose if her fruit lady Carol can get a last batch of good organic blueberries this late in the season, when the bell chimes.

It's gray and overcast, it even drizzled, which wouldn't be odd for October if it were anywhere but southern California. Instead it's driven people from the beaches and sidewalks, which means it's been a quiet day at the parlor. 

An older woman with kind eyes walks in, and Rey straightens, offering a polite smile. "Afternoon, how are you?"

The woman offers her a nod, and sighs, placing her hands on her hips. "Oh, I've had better days. Which is precisely why I'm here. Figured some ice cream could set things right again."

Rey grins wider. 

_Yes. Make me feel purposeful._

"We happen to specialize in pick-me-ups, so take your time looking at the menu, let me know if you want samples."

She murmurs her thanks and gazes up, the bright fluorescent bulbs reflecting off the lenses of her glasses. She must be a woman of decisiveness, because after only a moment of consideration, she's settled.

"Two scoops, please. One of lavender lemon and one of blueberry balsamic."

"In a cup or on a cone?" Rey gestures to the display, showing their periwinkle cones in three different sizes.

"Oh cone, definitely!" The woman says, delighted, and steps closer. "Those are just too damn cute."

Rey laughs. "Thanks. I figured if I got to run my own business I might as well theme it after my favorite color."

"You're the owner?"

"Yes, it was a mobile truck first, we opened the storefront recently."

The woman's answering smile grows as Rey explains. "You should be very proud of yourself. I've heard some awesome stuff about this place."

Rey struggles to contain her burst of pride, and presents her cone to the woman. "Can I let you in on a secret?" Rey whispers, and the woman leans conspiratorially over the counter, fighting a grin. "Those were very wise flavor choices. Lavender lemon is a summer only flavor, this is the last batch. And as for the other one, that shipment of blueberries was the best one we've had all year."

The woman's eyes widen, and without another second she takes a tentative lick of the top scoop. "You know, I was skeptical that you'd be able to get balsamic balanced right in an ice cream, but doggone it, you figured it out."

"Oh stop, or else soon my ego will be too big for the room." The woman laughs, accidentally smearing some ice cream on her cheek, which sparks another delighted giggle from her. Rey hands her a fistful of napkins, and they continue tittering as she takes another bite and makes an affirmative noise. 

Rey glances over her, her lined face and regal, graying hair. The purple dangly earrings that look like they were purchased at a local jewelry fair. The tunic/leggings/clogs combo so many middle-aged women seem to favor.

It's not often that Rey really connects with people of this age. _My mother's age._ The thought surfaces unbidden, and Rey feels a swell of longing. She tamps it down as her eyes prickle. 

The woman reaches for her purse, and Rey reacts swiftly. "Oh no, this one is on the house."

Her voice is still warm. "No, don't be ridiculous-"

"Really, please. The compliments you gave me are payment enough."

She looks uncertain, but lowers her hand from her bag, and begrudgingly nods. "Fine. But I'm ordering a half gallon to take home the next time I'm here, to make up for it."

Rey smiles, "It's a deal."

She lingers near the counter as she eats, and they chat about this and that. The woman grew up in Oregon, retired recently. Rey talks in vague terms about New Mexico, explains she moved here with Finn at eighteen and worked odd jobs til he was done with school. 

The flow of conversation is so easy, the woman's inherent kindness so genuine, that Rey is a little loathe to realize she's down to the last bite of her cone. 

"Well, I hope to see you again soon," Rey says sincerely, and the woman nods kindly. 

"Definitely. And sorry, I didn't catch your name?" The woman holds out her hand, and Rey strips off her glove so she can clasp it.

"Rey Johnson."

"Truly lovely to meet you Rey, I'm Leia."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confused but hopeful? Did I get that right?


	11. Chapter Preview: Thinner Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Happy weekend.
> 
> If I were the reader in this situation, I would have a pitchfork and a fiery torch ready for any author who teased me with such "previews," but I am operating on the belief that all of you are better than me. Love you all <3

Ben's bimonthly meeting with Snoke glows in red in his Google Calendar. When Snoke first sent the recurring event to his Gmail he supposes the color was meant to underscore some sort of importance, but now, Ben just imagines all the negatively-connoted things that are red.

Fire engines. Stop signs. That spot on a black widow spider's thorax. 

Now, as Ben rolls over in bed to silence his alarm and check his schedule for the day, that lurid red stares back at him. He grunts in displeasure, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes and really feeling the way his chest rises and falls where it's bare under the sheets.

He lies there, amazed that even the thought of Snoke can't fully will away his uncommonly intense morning wood, and refuses to think about Rey. 

It's happened before, when she's crossed his mind in these brief moments before he gets up. There are tiny leaks of light escaping into the room around his blackout curtains, but he still can't see much. He has none of the familiar sights of his own space to remind him that he isn't really in her bed, or the storage room at First Order, or the office upstairs. 

That's where it always starts, with Ben in the dark, trying to blink away the visual projection that he's somewhere else. Somewhere with her. It builds, grows impossible to ignore, and ends with him sweating and gasping up at the ceiling, his boxer briefs sticky, his hand shoved inside, and a weak facsimile of the pleasure they share trickling through his bloodstream.

She's already crept into so many aspects of his life; he's already shared so much more with her than he ever intended. Venting about issues with Snoke, about occasional frustrations with Hux and Phasma. Betraying to her what he likes in bed, how he likes to be touched, how he wants to touch _her_. Providing fertile ground for her to wonder why he feels the need to be so close, why he always wants to look at her, why he never refuses when she barnacles herself onto him at the end and doesn't let go. 

The more she took from him...

_-No_.

The more he unwittingly _gave her_ of himself, the harder he reacted, trying to push her away. For a while she fought back, but at some point, she seems to have accepted this odd distance his insists stays between them. To take what she can get from him.

He's too messy. Too complicated, and angry, and taciturn. Too cold and rude on the surface, and god forbid anyone ever fully break underneath it, too needy and grasping, anxious and fearful.

Not that he would know. No one has ever broken completely through the surface.

But he feels nauseatingly confident that to reveal all of himself would be so ugly, so rife with pain and the potential for someone to run screaming from him, that he will never let it happen.

He tried to keep her far away, on the shore, without even a toe in the vast, dark lake of who he's become. But she was crafty, inching out in some moments and surging out at others, until she was standing squarely in the middle of the frozen, murky expanse. She's found weak spots, areas where that icy surface has begun to crack. Some days, Ben thinks she's found where the ice is so thin that she can use that steady, penetrating gaze to see right through it, to what he keeps underneath.

But she's never fallen through. And she never will.

He shoves his thoughts of her aside in the same motion of shoving back the covers, busying himself with making the bed, putting his coffee on, feeding Star as she twines around his ankles. He means to yell at her for getting fur on the throw that lays over the back of the couch, but as she blinks up at him with her round green eyes, crying for wet food and butting against his knees, his resolve crumbles. He supposes he used it all up on the Rey thing, moments ago. 

So instead he gets Star's wet food, and makes his own eggs and mushrooms and spinach, and drinks his black coffee, and does not think about Rey. Instead he thinks about what he needs to discuss with Snoke, what he needs to finish at the distillery before he heads to Snoke's main office for the meeting, and when Star wanders back on silent paws and lays on top of his cold, bare feet under the table, it's the first time this morning that he cracks a tiny ghost of a smile.

\-------

Ben knows he's openly disparaged Rey's diet several times since that first time he was here. Like the time he caught her eating a massive brownie at 6:30 p.m. and commented on the hearty dinner she had there. He's not sure if he was jokingly trying to shame her into eating better, or if he just wanted to see the flash of annoyance in her eyes, accompanied with a tiny smile.

Either way he's made his thoughts on her eating habits pretty clear.

He takes all of it back as he slowly wakes up, light dancing behind his eyelids, and finds Rey sitting up in her bed, watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine on mute. She has her knees pulled up to her chest and she's eating a huge gob of peanut butter off a spoon.

He doesn't make it immediately known that he's awake. Instead he watches her, the blue light of the screen flickering and throwing all her sharp angles into greater light and shadow. He watches her tongue take a swipe, her jaw and throat work as she swallows. He feels himself start to thicken, then begin getting hard.

He watches her limpid eyes dart around the screen and wants to see them glance over, to witness his arousal. 

Finally, when the spoon is nearly clean, he watches her cheeks hollow as she sucks the last of the peanut butter off, and that's when he can't take it anymore.

He sits up, and her eyes shift over to him as he slides across the bed, reaching for one of her tucked knees and pulling, until her legs fall open for him and he can get his head between.

"Be-" she begins to say, but falls silent at the first heavy lick against her core. He remains relentless from that first taste, determined to see and feel the way her body will wind tighter and tighter in response to his ministrations.

It's happened between them enough now that he knows what she likes, knows the rhythm and when she's ready for a second finger and just how to stiffen his tongue. It takes him mere moments to have her climbing, almost squirming away from the intensity, but he holds her hips down. One hand grips his hair like a vice, and he feels as she reflexively jerks the other hand out, hears the clatter as the spoon hits the floor, and with one last curl of his fingers she's gone, shaking around his hand.

He pulls back, just barely strokes her outer folds in a way meant more for comfort than pleasure. He lowers his head to rest on the silken inside of her thigh. He slides a hand over her breast and feels as her heartbeat slowly goes from erratic to calm, as she slits her eyes open to peer down at him.

"What was that?" She says, sounding almost awed, and Ben...doesn't know what it was. He was compelled, and he obeyed the compulsion. 

But now he feels the odd burn of being exposed, not physically, but internally somehow. Like a photo negative left too long in the light. 

His frantic desire has been laid before her. Another crack in the ice where she stands.

Does she see it? Does she recognize why he needs this? This escape from reality? A prickle of anxiety runs down his back.

He looks away and sits up, running a hand over his face, and reaches for his shorts. 

"I should go. Tons of prep to do tomorrow before we bring some new barrels over from the warehouse." He yanks his Henley on.

"Okay," she says, her voice sounding small, and he turns fully to see her curled up again. Her skin has a light sheen of sweat. She looks relaxed, but suddenly he feels bad, for bringing her that onslaught of pleasure and then vanishing so quickly, so he leans back and lays one long, soft kiss just under her jaw. She stays stiff, so he takes that as his cue.

She rises after a moment to lock the door behind him, and as he descends the stairs he can see her silhouette as she moves across the room and climbs back into her bed. When he pulls his car door shut, he stares out at the dark beach for a moment, then slams his hand against the steering wheel, swearing, frustrated. 

\-------

The next day, as Rey strips her sheets to be washed, she circles to the other side of the bed and sees it.

There, on the worn floorboards, is the spoon.

She feels a pulse of arousal, swallows hard to quell it. The silver of the spoon seems to wink at her. She picks it up, throws it into the sink among other dishes yet to be washed, and clenches her jaw.


	12. Thinner Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blessedly I was neither pierced by any pitchfork nor marred by any flaming torch, as a result of that second teaser preview. 
> 
> Thanks to all for your love and patience. I hope this chapter proves a handsome reward.

Ben's bimonthly meeting with Snoke glows in red in his Google Calendar. When Snoke first sent the recurring event to his Gmail he supposes the color was meant to underscore some sort of importance, but now, Ben just imagines all the negatively-connoted things that are red.

Fire engines. Stop signs. That spot on a black widow spider's thorax. 

Now, as Ben rolls over in bed to silence his alarm and check his schedule for the day, that lurid red stares back at him. He grunts in displeasure, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes and really feeling the way his chest rises and falls where it's bare under the sheets.

He lies there, amazed that even the thought of Snoke can't fully will away his uncommonly intense morning wood, and refuses to think about Rey. 

It's happened before, when she's crossed his mind in these brief moments before he gets up. There are tiny leaks of light escaping into the room around his blackout curtains, but he still can't see much. He has none of the familiar sights of his own space to remind him that he isn't really in her bed, or the storage room at First Order, or the office upstairs. 

That's where it always starts, with Ben in the dark, trying to blink away the visual projection that he's somewhere else. Somewhere with her. It builds, grows impossible to ignore, and ends with him sweating and gasping up at the ceiling, his boxer briefs sticky, his hand shoved inside, and a weak facsimile of the pleasure they share trickling through his bloodstream.

She's already crept into so many aspects of his life; he's already shared so much more with her than he ever intended. Venting about issues with Snoke, about occasional frustrations with Hux and Phasma. Betraying to her what he likes in bed, how he likes to be touched, how he wants to touch _her_. Providing fertile ground for her to wonder why he feels the need to be so close, why he always wants to look at her, why he never refuses when she barnacles herself onto him at the end and doesn't let go. 

The more she took from him...

_-No_.

The more he unwittingly _gave her_ of himself, the harder he reacted, trying to push her away. For a while she fought back, but at some point, she seems to have accepted this odd distance his insists stays between them. To take what she can get from him.

He's too messy. Too complicated, and angry, and taciturn. Too cold and rude on the surface, and god forbid anyone ever fully break underneath it, too needy and grasping, anxious and fearful.

Not that he would know. No one has ever broken completely through the surface.

But he feels nauseatingly confident that to reveal all of himself would be so ugly, so rife with pain and the potential for someone to run screaming from him, that he will never let it happen.

He tried to keep her far away, on the shore, without even a toe in the vast, dark lake of who he's become. But she was crafty, inching out in some moments and surging out at others, until she was standing squarely in the middle of the frozen, murky expanse. She's found weak spots, areas where that icy surface has begun to crack. Some days, Ben thinks she's found where the ice is so thin that she can use that steady, penetrating gaze to see right through it, to what he keeps underneath.

But she's never fallen through. And she never will.

He shoves his thoughts of her aside in the same motion of shoving back the covers, busying himself with making the bed, putting his coffee on, feeding Star as she twines around his ankles. He means to yell at her for getting fur on the throw that lays over the back of the couch, but as she blinks up at him with her round green eyes, crying for wet food and butting against his knees, his resolve crumbles. He supposes he used it all up on the Rey thing, moments ago. 

So instead he gets Star's wet food, and makes his own eggs and mushrooms and spinach, and drinks his black coffee, and does not think about Rey. Instead he thinks about what he needs to discuss with Snoke, what he needs to finish at the distillery before he heads to Snoke's main office for the meeting, and when Star wanders back on silent paws and lays on top of his cold, bare feet under the table, it's the first time this morning that he cracks a tiny ghost of a smile.

\-------

Ben suddenly notices that the walls of Snoke's office are red.

He can't believe he never realized it before, but suddenly it makes sense, that the Google calendar would be similarly color-coded. Snoke sees Ben's eyes darting across the walls, so Ben mentions that it's rare to see a room painted that shade. Snoke chuckles mirthlessly, "The shade is called 'Candy Apple,' although I must admit I've never had one of those."

Ben thinks to himself, rather dramatically, that it looks more like fresh, arterial blood.

Snoke reclines in his high-backed leather office chair, and as he turns in his seat, his distorted image reflects off the edge of his wide chrome desk. 

He offers Ben a drink, as he always does. Even though he is the primary investor in a _distillery,_ he still chooses to keep his office stocked with Glenlivet and not Ben's own product.

Not that Ben can be too offended. Glenlivet's Enigma isn't exactly bottom-shelf swill. Nonetheless, it feels like the smallest dig. 

"Can I pour you a dram, Benjamin?"

"No thanks, sir." 

"What's on the agenda for today?" Snoke steeples his fingers the way he always does, his eyes narrowing, shark-like. Ben stares at the pattern of creases in his gold paisley tie.

They discuss how much product needs to be preserved for the distillery versus the amount they can continue to distribute among liquor stores who stock their product. They debate whether it's necessary for all warehouse workers to be trained in front of house duties too, in order to have a long list of qualified back ups in case anything ever goes wrong with staffing. They discuss the late fall and early winter events that First Order has planned.

On the first two issues, Ben knows what he wants to do. But Snoke is so relentless, rephrasing his own wishes over and over rather than actually compromising, that Ben gives in. He caves on two issues that are of less importance to him, so that he can make his last stand on the third.

The events. Hux came to him with an idea for something that would recur, weekly. Hux had the cost and the staffing already sketched out, plans fully in place, and Ben was reluctant to commit to a repeated event without any proof of concept. How would a week be enough time to analyze whether the first night was a success?

Hux had an answer for everything, and Ben found that he couldn't say no. So now here he is, staking all of his negotiation capital on this one idea, and Snoke is resisting. Again.

But Ben insists. He pushes that increasing their events and building a sense of community among their frequent customers is the safest way to ensure long-term, reliable sales. 

Finally, Snoke caves.

"Hux is a good man. Loyal, obedient. He's always listened well, and understood the importance of taking my advice."

Ben chooses not to point out that "loyal" and "obedient" aren't really words used to describe people, more often dogs, but Snoke isn't wrong. Hux has always been more willing to acquiesce to Snoke's advice than Ben. Maybe it's that First Order was not his dream the way it was Ben's. Maybe it's that Hux's life hasn't been quite so stupidly tough, so he doesn't have quite as much fight in him.

Maybe it's just Ben's inherent, genetic stubbornness, that Hux was lucky enough to be born without. But for whatever reason, Snoke is always quick to point out the contrast. 

"He's been great business partner." Ben says blandly, and Snoke blinks at him for a second, then purses his lips.

"I suppose we can give this fanciful idea of his a try," Snoke drawls, "but the second I see any numbers that don't agree with me, it's done." 

"I'll let him know."

"Good," Snoke lifts his glass, the well-established sign that their meeting has reached its end, and Ben begins gathering up his papers, immediately making a new mental list of all the thinks he's been asked to check or fix or do.

But before he can get completely lost in his own thoughts...

"And what of Rey Johnson?"

Snoke's tone is identical to before, as though this question is no different from any of his other business-related queries.

Except it isn't. Ben's heart begins to thunder so suddenly it feels like it exploded. Snoke levels a gaze at him, and every cell in Ben's body revolts.

_He knows._

"Rey...Johnson, sir?"

_He knows, and it's bad, and it's going to get worse._

Snoke never could resist wielding the power of a secret.

If he sees how deeply this one hits Ben, he will leak it slowly, to one person at a time, keeping him fearful and controlled, who knows for how long. 

"Mhmm." Snoke keeps staring. Ben just blinks back. With a very put-upon sigh, Snoke adds, "What do you think of her business acumen?"

Ben's fear flags, just barely. He swallows painfully, his mouth dry, letting the one hand under the table clench into an impossibly tight fist, and cobbles together his racing thoughts.

"She's..."

_Infuriating. Beautiful. The most addicting woman I've ever met, but her blind allegiance to joy disgusts me sometimes. She intoxicates me and I like it, yet most days I wish we had never met._

"...she's certainly clever." He finally blurts out.

"Clever?" Snoke repeats, frowning.

"She understands her audience." Ben clarifies, and sits back in his chair, finally able to give voice to the thoughts he's had all this time but could never express, for fear someone would read into his words too much. "The wall of Polaroid photos from those who visited the opening day. The signature light blue cones and boxes. The fact that the shop is dog-friendly, the home ice cream-making classes, the business owner who wears a baseball cap, and, and you know," Ben waves his hand vaguely, "grabs a fistful of napkins to hand to a mom trying to clean her child's sticky fingers." He nods to himself, as though that will convince Snoke too. "It's all very clever. That's what people want. A business owner they can relate to, a place where they feel like themselves, but still a place they feel advertising to the social world. A place worthy of Tweeting and Facebooking and Instagramming. It's the perfect combination of authenticity and artifice." 

Snoke grunts, but after a moment says nothing more, so Ben goes on. "And then there's the seasonal flavors. The attention she pays to the quality of her ingredients. All the elements that make a person willing to pay more than an average price. The image of Irresistible gets them in the door, but there has to be more that keeps them coming back. And she's achieved that by making genuinely good ice cream."

Snoke tilts his head, considering, then volunteers, "I think she's too soft." Ben feels a lurching instinct to point out that he didn't ask what the man thought, but fights it. "I've observed her a few times from afar, and the wisdom of my career has made me see things I think others miss. She's too passionate, too desperate for people's approval of her creations. Going too far to ensure people are happy with what she has to offer. Helping too much." Snoke lays both his hands on the table. "Yet it's born out of some hunger. Some desperation to succeed. If only she could harness that strength and use it the right way. For the right things. If she could shed the people and things that don't put her on the path to profit, I think she could be a great success."

"She's nearly in the black after only five months in business, sir." Ben points out, the desire to defend her burning acidly in his chest.

_Her reputation isn't your responsibility_, some corner of his mind reminds him.

He ignores it. 

"Five months, yes. She's so young. Her business is in its infancy. Time will reveal if her early victories can last."

Ben wants to rattle off the myriad other ways she has done well. He wants to admit that even he, avowedly antagonistic towards dessert, enjoyed that umbrella cake. He wants to talk about the handful of community college students to whom she is providing part-time work that pays above minimum wage. 

But half these things Ben shouldn't even know about. And the other half, he knows, won't change Snoke's mind. Nothing will. That's the thing about insecure wealthy businessmen with hollow power, who got lucky and had too much help. They don't understand the signs of real achievement.

So Ben keeps his mouth shut, and nods after a moment more.

But Snoke isn't done.

He tips back the last of his drink, and rearranges a pile of gleaming pens on his desk. "I think you should probably stay away from her."

Ben's fingers tighten around his stack of papers. "I'm sorry sir, _what?_"

"I think any entanglement between First Order and Irresistible seems very ill-advised. I don't want you influenced by someone with so much.._.feeling_." He utters the last word like it's a terminal disease.

"Sir, I fail to see how Irresistible is affecting m-"

"Well, the pairings are the biggest issue."

Ben's mouth shuts.

"Right." Ben says, and tries to keep his posture relaxed. "So what you're saying is, you don't think we should continue with the pairings."

"I do not, no."

"Well," Ben whispers, and pretends to consider it for a moment, "I respect your lifetime of knowledge on matters like this, so I'll break the news to her."

Later that day, when he and she frantically make out in the storage room, grinding and groping for five minutes before Phasma's voice rings out looking for him, he never mentions the conversation.

As he pushes her hair away from her face, giving her one last kiss before backing up and darting out of the room, he ruminates on a few of Snoke's words. _She's too passionate. It's born out of some sort of hunger._

Ben admits that he used to dislike those same things.

_Used to._

\-------

Ben knows he's openly disparaged Rey's diet several times since that first time he was here. Like the time he caught her eating a massive brownie at 6:30 p.m. and commented on the hearty dinner she had there. He's not sure if he was jokingly trying to shame her into eating better, or if he just wanted to see the flash of annoyance in her eyes, accompanied with a tiny smile.

Either way he's made his thoughts on her eating habits pretty clear.

He takes all of it back as he slowly wakes up, light dancing behind his eyelids, and finds Rey sitting up in her bed, watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine on mute. She has her knees pulled up to her chest and she's eating a huge gob of peanut butter off a spoon.

He doesn't make it immediately known that he's awake. Instead he watches her, the blue light of the screen flickering and throwing all her sharp angles into greater light and shadow. He watches her tongue take a swipe, her jaw and throat work as she swallows. He feels himself start to thicken, then begin getting hard.

He watches her limpid eyes dart around the screen and wants to see them glance over, to witness his arousal. 

Finally, when the spoon is nearly clean, he watches her cheeks hollow as she sucks the last of the peanut butter off, and that's when he can't take it anymore.

He sits up, and her eyes shift over to him as he slides across the bed, reaching for one of her tucked knees and pulling, until her legs fall open for him and he can get his head between.

"Be-" she begins to say, but falls silent at the first heavy lick against her core. He remains relentless from that first taste, determined to see and feel the way her body will wind tighter and tighter in response to his ministrations.

It's happened between them enough now that he knows what she likes, knows the rhythm and when she's ready for a second finger and just how to stiffen his tongue. It takes him mere moments to have her climbing, almost squirming away from the intensity, but he holds her hips down. One hand grips his hair like a vice, and he feels as she reflexively jerks the other hand out, hears the clatter as the spoon hits the floor, and with one last curl of his fingers she's gone, shaking around his hand.

He pulls back, just barely strokes her outer folds in a way meant more for comfort than pleasure. He lowers his head to rest on the silken inside of her thigh. He slides a hand over her breast and feels as her heartbeat slowly goes from erratic to calm, as she slits her eyes open to peer down at him.

"What was that?" She says, sounding almost awed, and Ben...doesn't know what it was. He was compelled, and he obeyed the compulsion. 

But now he feels the odd burn of being exposed, not physically, but internally somehow. Like a photo negative left too long in the light. 

His frantic desire has been laid before her. Another crack in the ice where she stands.

Does she see it? Does she recognize why he needs this? This escape from reality? A prickle of anxiety runs down his back.

He looks away and sits up, running a hand over his face, and reaches for his shorts. 

"I should go. Tons of prep to do tomorrow before we bring some new barrels over from the warehouse." He yanks his Henley on.

"Okay," she says, her voice sounding small, and he turns fully to see her curled up again. Her skin has a light sheen of sweat. She looks relaxed, but suddenly he feels bad, for bringing her that onslaught of pleasure and then vanishing so quickly, so he leans back and lays one long, soft kiss just under her jaw. She stays stiff, so he takes that as his cue.

She rises after a moment to lock the door behind him, and as he descends the stairs he can see her silhouette as she moves across the room and climbs back into her bed. When he pulls his car door shut, he stares out at the dark beach for a moment, then slams his hand against the steering wheel, swearing, frustrated. 

\-------

The next day, as Rey strips her sheets to be washed, she circles to the other side of the bed and sees it.

There, on the worn floorboards, is the spoon.

She feels a pulse of arousal, swallows hard to quell it. The silver of the spoon seems to wink at her. She picks it up, throws it into the sink among other dishes yet to be washed, and clenches her jaw.

\--------

Ben is forced to admit Hux's idea was actually a really good one. 

Booze trivia. It sounded so stupid, but once Phasma backed him up and helped flesh out the fragile husk of a concept, it became something great. They start it a week after the opening.

Four rounds of alcohol themed questions, which it turns out once you apply some effort, can include a wide range of subjects. What was this character's signature drink in this famous film? This alcohol was first developed in what country? Name two common drink ingredients that frequently cause food-borne illnesses.

The answers to that last one, it turns out, are egg whites and raw fruit juices. Ben was quick to hop on the microphone at that one, and point out that First Order did not use either of those in their cocktail recipes. 

Anyways, the night goes like this: Every Thursday, the groups roll in at eight. Some teams come regularly enough that they have "their" table. Hux and Phasma host the first three rounds of trivia, then everyone breaks to eat dinner. They have Bazine, the chef who developed the menu, come in long enough to cook a big family style dinner: Guinness stew with salad and dinner rolls, roast chicken with peas and pearl onions, and Ben's personal favorite, green Thai curry with grilled tofu. They lay it out buffet style, everyone loads up a plate, and then grabs their one free whiskey or cocktail. They eat, play the last two rounds, and announce the winners. 

$30 for dinner and a drink, plus an incremental donation to the New Years Eve trivia event they are planning.

Hux and Phaz turn out to be surprisingly great hosts. They engage in a bit more banter than they normally would, snatching the mic back and forth to continually make fun of each other, and it's the most relaxed Ben's ever seen his closest friends. 

This week, Ben leans forward with his elbows on the bar, watching as the teams eagerly await each correct answer for the final round. The cheers and awws make him grin every time. Bazine comes sweeping out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel, and lets out a chuckle. "Heated competition, eh?" Ben hums his assent, and feels as Bazine mimics his posture and leans forward. She's close enough that her entire upper arm is touching his, and when she turns to look at him, he doesn't look back. "Good feedback on the dinner tonight?"

Ben thinks back to the spaghetti bolognese and roasted zucchini with herbs, and how many compliments he heard as he went around checking on everyone. "Yep. Probably the most positive comments yet." He shifts his weight just a little, to lean away from her.

"But what did you think?" She murmurs like they're the only two in the room, and reaches across their parallel arms, touching his hand with hers. 

He finally meets her gaze, and sees a liquid warmth there he's not sure he likes. Bazine is beautiful, and a wonderful chef, and works incredibly hard on their behalf with both the small plates and these bigger dinners. 

She's been doing this a lot lately: finding casual ways to touch him, Maneuvering the conversation to be less about First Order and more about his life. Ben should be flattered, but something in him...rebels. 

"I've never met a carb I don't like, Zine. I loved it." He says, offering a small smile, and picks up the copper water jug on the pretense of needing to go fill glasses. 

He lingers at the table of one of the regular teams, chatting with them as Hux calls out the last few answers, and Bazine eventually seems to get the message, because she raises her hand in a goodbye and drifts out the back.

He sighs. He doesn't want to jeopardize the success of the business or the amiability of his working relationship with her. He hopes that the way he rebuffed her sinks in this time. It's been nearly a month of dodging her thinly veiled invitations to try a new restaurant or let her cook her signature dish for him, and he's running out of excuses. 

The room erupts when the "Mosh Hashanahs" a team of all Jewish death metal fans, take the trophy for the night. Their prize is free double-decker cones at Irresistible, two monster-sized scoops that only fit in the largest size of waffle cone. 

Predictably, Rey gave them as many coupons as they wanted when Phasma asked her to donate trivia prizes. Ben can't say he's thrilled she, or anyone from a number of other places, are helping. But Phasma was the one who asked, though, so it's not like it was his choice.

He thinks of Rey's head poking in the door the other day, calling out, "You guys need more coupons or are you sick of my perfect ice cream?" and he grins, without even realizing he's doing it. 

\-------

Rey opens the door. Her porch light isn't on, so he's shrouded in darkness. 

He doesn't even say hello. "Remember that thing you said? The first time I was here? About how sometimes the promise of a thing is just as good as the thing itself?" There's an urgency in his voice, and after a moment she nods, slowly. 

"Uh huh." 

"Do you...Do you ever feel like maybe the promise is even better?"

She pauses, mouth opening and closing, then minutely shakes her head. "What do you mean?"

"Like, like the idea of something is so great, that you almost don't want it to really happen, because the reality might disappoint you. So you're content to live with the...the unfulfilled fantasy."

_Like my parents._

The idea of them, the dream of who they might be, and why they did what they did. Then there's the creeping, insidious reminder that they probably didn't do it for heroic reasons, they probably didn't have good intentions. They probably won't ever bother to find her. They just...didn't care. 

She takes a sharp breath. "Yes. Yes I have felt like that. Content to live with the fantasy rather than be proven wrong."

His eyes dart between hers for a moment, and then he nods quickly.

He steps forward and cups her face in both hands, reading her expression for a moment longer before he kisses her.

She drags him inside.

After, as she watches his bare butt while he pads to the bathroom, she realizes she can't remember the last time they argued. 

But she knows, if she tries once more to ask Ben why they're doing this, his answer will be the same.

Opaque and brief. _I just...wanted to._ Clipped and cold, like the sound of ice shifting in a glass. With this certain inflection that implies she's ridiculous for even questioning his reasons, like _just wanting to_ should have been so obvious to her.

It's a clever deflection technique. But he's used it before, and now that she's caught on, it won't work again. 

Not that she has any plans to ask again.

She hasn't built up the courage yet. 

She's not sure she ever will.

\-------

A week later Leia's back, staking her claim on half a gallon of lavender lemon for home before she even orders her cone. 

It's just like last time. She tucks into her two scoops, she and Rey talk. They talk about everything: the rise of tourism on Coruscant Beach, the way that fluctuating prices on the dairy stock market affect Rey's suppliers, the best place in the city to get poké.

Leia consistently provides the latest installment in an ongoing sage: her curmudgeon husband Han has made friends with some raccoons who come to eat the grapes in their backyard. It always makes Rey laugh, as Leia imitates his gruff voice, attempting to softly coo at feral animals and woo them to approach him.

It turns out Leia used to be a chef.

Rey hasn't lived in the area long enough to recognize the name _Leia Organa_ yet, but Rey is enough a part of the local food scene that when she hears Leia founded the hit restaurants New Republic and Trilogy, as well as a few other lesser cafes, she's impressed. 

Rey, almost without realizing, starts dropping tidbits of her past, too.

Not a soul in Coruscant knows these things except for Rose and Finn, but the steely warmth Leia exudes breaks down a lot of Rey's defenses. She talks about Plutt, summers spent selling rocket pops and Cornettos out of his ice cream truck empire. She mentions getting emancipated at 16, after proving to a judge she could make a living on her own. And she talks about her listless two years, working herself to death and waiting for the day when she and Finn graduated and they could leave this all behind. 

Leia's gaze always gets softer when Rey begins a sentence with, "Back in New Mexico..."

It's been a long time since Rey felt so _heard_ by someone. A long time since she's let herself be so seen. But Leia does nothing but smile gently, offer words of commiseration or encouragement, and pat Rey's hand. So Rey keeps opening up.

Leia confides one day that she and Han got in a horrible fight. Family stuff, she tells Rey, to which Rey shrugs and mutters, "Can't relate."

Leia lets out a darkly humorous chuckle and says, "He's worth it, but in the moment that doesn't make him seem like any less of a dick. God, I could use a drink."

Rey perks up with a potential antidote. "You should pop over to First Order next door, they've got great cocktails." She gestures through the window, to where Hux is talking with some customers.

"Nah," Leia mumbles, "isn't it a distillery? Whiskey really isn't my thing."

"I get it. If you ever change your mind though, they have a trivia event once a week that's a huge hit. Might be a fun thing for you and Han to do together."

"Sounds interesting. So business is going well over there?"

Rey sighs, "I think so. The owner, Ben Solo, keeps his cards pretty close to his chest, so it's difficult to know how they're really doing. I've never been able to pry it out of him."

Leia hums. "He's pretty private, eh?"

Rey tilts her head back and forth in half-agreement. She debates holding back the words waiting on her tongue,

_Come on, this is Leia. We're beyond the point of tiptoeing through conversation._

Rey sighs. "Private, yeah. But also incredibly stubborn. So even if he does know and trust you, sometimes it's like when you ask a question, he doesn't want to answer you out of spite."

"You know the guy well?" Leia squints. 

Well. One could certainly say she_ knows_ him. She feels a hot, sharp flare of nervousness but gulps it down with a sip from her water bottle. "Sort of. I've been around him a fair bit. And yet I couldn't tell you a thing about the state of the business. Like I said, stubborn as hell."

Leia fiddles with the edge of a napkin. "What you said before, about spite? In my experience, stubbornness is motivated by two things: spite, and fear. And the only way to tell the difference is by understanding how someone feels about you. If they hate you, the root of it is spite. But if they don't hate you, god forbid they even like you, then any stubbornness is probably the product of fear. Because the stubbornness acts as a buffer between them and the truth. Keeps it at bay, so they don't have to confront it."

All her infuriating fights with Ben. Her recent hypothesis that a lot of it has to do with his experiences with Snoke.

_I think you're afraid,_ she'd told him that day on the stairs.

"I think you're right, Leia. I think that makes a lot of sense. Very insightful of you."

Leia smiles fondly. "Well, one would hope I'd gained some wisdom after six decades of life."

Rey scoffs, insisting there's no way Leia is a day over fifty-five, and their conversation dissolves into something lighter. This time, as Leia leaves, she gives Rey a hug.

Finn comments on it, later that night, when Rey is doing the final counter wipe-down and he's buffing fingerprint smudges off the pastry case. "You and Leia seem to be getting along well, eh?"

Rey glances up, but seeing she only has his back, continues her work. "Yeah, she. I dunno, we just get each other. Every time she drops in, we have so much to talk about."

Finn stops and looks over. "I think it's good, Peanut. She seems like such a nice person."

Rey smiles. Finn got lucky, when it comes to nice people. After the two of them got bounced around the foster system for years, Rey got placed with Plutt in eighth grade and Finn got...adopted. By a good family, not perfect, but kind and hardworking, and they cared about him. He built those relationships, whereas Rey never did. She knows that he, just like she, sees her friendship with Leia as some some budding imitation of what she's always lacked.

"Thanks Finn. It means a lot that you're noticing."

He rolls his eyes fondly. "Hard not to notice when you and I spend twelve hours a day together."

Rey grins wickedly and runs over, jumping on his back like a spider monkey. "What, you trying to say you're sick of me?"

"No, no! I just see you so often I know everything about you." He cackles a breathless laugh. "You couldn't hide something from me if your life depended on it!"

Rey stiffens and forces out a chuckle, sliding off his back.

If only he knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pining! The angst! 
> 
> Also: Glenlivet Enigma is not *that* luxurious of a whiskey, BUT I defy you to find a bottle style that looks more like the Supreme Leader would drink it.
> 
> Also Also: My dad is Han and has attempted to hand-feed the raccoons who visit our yard to eat our grapes before they even have a CHANCE to ripen and become edible. They want nothing to do with him, but he will not be deterred from trying, and it's the funniest thing I have ever seen.


	13. The Middle Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more Rose and Finn for those who had been looking forward to it.
> 
> MAN this chapter was hard to edit. Hope you enjoy.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I have two new fic ideas, and I cannot decide between them. If you'd like to cast a vote or offer some thoughts, which I would really appreciate, [excerpts from both can be found here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638181/chapters/54104758#workskin). Thanks! :)

\-------

Leia drops by on Halloween. At Finn's insistence, they've announced a limited edition candy corn flavor, which thankfully does not contain any _actual_ candy corn, but instead is a striped combination of pumpkin spice, saffron caramel, and sweet cream to represent the three colors. 

Leia insists on trying it. After three licks, she declares, "Not your best. But I appreciate the novelty of the concept." She's wearing a big green velvet witch's hat and a slightly more fluttery tunic from all her others.

Rey's got on a purple vest and skirt she found at Goodwill, paired with one of Poe's paisley button downs. Despite the obscurity of the costume, two customers today have recognized that she's Janet from The Good Place, which has delighted her.

Leia's chattering and crunching into her cone when Rey sees a familiar form out the front windows. Ben appears to be arguing with Phasma. After a few moments of wild hand gesturing and head shaking, he finally reaches out, hand open, and takes what Phasma is proffering.

It turns out to be a red plastic headband with devil horns on it. He begrudgingly dons it, and Phasma straightens it for him, much to his chagrin and her amusement. Then he storms into First Order and once he's stalked past the view of the window, disappears.

Rey tries to contain her guffaw, but Leia notices and says with a grin, "What?"

Rey feels guilty for paying so little attention to Leia's story, so she insists that it's nothing, and turns her attention fully back to the woman across the table. 

Eventually, Leia has to head home to prepare for trick-or-treaters, so they engage in their now-standard hug and Leia meanders out of the shop. Jess asks behind the counter if Rey needs her for the rest of the evening, to which Rey shakes her head and wishes her a good night.

Rey's staring down at the fudge dispenser, trying to identify the location of a clog in the tubing, when a low, resonant, familiar frequency rolls through her. Her head darts up like a dog before an earthquake, and she stares out the front windows again.

There, among their meager seven parking spaces, is Ben. And he's hollering down from his ridiculous height, to some short person.

Some person wearing a green witch's hat.

Before she can determine much else, Rey darts out from behind the counter and throws open the door, the bell above clanging aggressively. 

He's right in the middle of screaming, "...and I don't want you around here anymore! You can't be-"

Rey yells over him. "What the hell are you doing?"

He stops mid-word, body still but eyes latching onto her. "What?"

Rey feels her blood boil as she takes in the dejected face of Leia, normally a powerhouse of confidence and wit, who has never looked so small. "Why are you yelling at Leia?"

Ben's mouth shuts and he swallows, but he continues blinking, looking back and forth between them. "Leia?"

"Yes," Rey mutters impatiently, and gestures over to the woman, "Leia. Frequent customer and new friend of mine." 

"Fre...frequent customer?" Ben repeats, looking befuddled, and his arms float down to his sides. He takes a step closer to Rey, as though demanding an answer.

"Yes, idiot. You know, someone who likes your product and likes you, and decides to keep returning. For probably the past month or so."

Ben takes a moment to digest this, and Leia is just staring between them, looking bewildered. 

Ben turns sharply away from Rey, his gaze fixed on the dark eyes hovering behind a pair of green glasses. "How long have you been spying on me, huh?"

"Spying!" Leia exclaims, "Don't be ridiculous."

Rey wants to believe her. But there's something feigned, in the way Leia's huffing and crossing her arms. 

"What the hell are you talking about, Ben? What reason would Leia have to spy on you?" Her confusion is still growing.

"Oh, she thinks she has every reason." Ben nods, and turns fully to Rey. "After all, she _is_ my mother."

Rey's stomach drops, so far it must hit the asphalt. 

\---------

Rose looks away from the TV, hearing Finn shuffling into the kitchen. She hears the rattle of all the bottles on the door as he opens the fridge. The glow from the bulb inside and the glow from the screen before her are all that illuminate his little house. The trick-or-treaters petered out half an hour ago.

"I'm worried," Rose calls out bluntly, burying her feet deeper into the blanket across her lap. 

Finn appears in the doorway, halfway through squeezing Sriracha onto some leftover salmon, his face troubled. "Worried about what babe?"

"About Rey." Finn stares at her for a moment before disappearing to replace the bottle, then comes straight back and settles in next to her. She pushes her feet into his lap as he mutes the TV.

"How so?" 

"I mean," Rose begins. She feels silly for bringing it up again, but she can't shake her uneasiness. "It's nothing we haven't talked about before, but I'm still really concerned. About how she's gonna feel when she finds out."

"Finds out about us?" Finn says, around a mouthful of food.

Rose nods, and some commercial is so dark that she arches backwards to flip on the small, warm glow of the lamp on Finn's end table. 

"I still believe in what I said last time," Finn says, but his eyes still look uneasy, "She wants me to be happy. I think she wants that for you too. I see no reason why this would make her upset."

"I just feel like she's never had anybody who was hers." Rose protests, every story Rey's ever told her flicking across her memory. Rose still doesn't know what happened to Rey's family.

"Yeah but, people weren't made to be possessed, Rosie."

"I know that," Rose defends, "and I think Rey does too. But what we have is...big." In spite of the somber topic she can't help the tiny smile that quirks onto her face, and Finn's eyes grow warm as they trace its contours. "It's not 'hey two of your friends are dating.' It's..."

"It's 'hey, two of your friends are in love and already fantasizing about white picket fences and tiny babies and rambunctious family dogs,'" Finn finishes for her. 

"Yeah," Rose says, and her wisp of a smile fades. "You guys have been the most important person in each other's lives for so long. There's a part of me that wishes we had never hid this, just so we could have eased her in. Instead, she's gonna get dunk-tanked with our relationship all at once."

"Nah," he says, shaking his head and poking the tines of his fork against the edge of the bowl, "I'll still find a way to drop hints. She already knows we were texting the night of First Order's opening, I'll just throw a few more breadcrumbs like that an-" Finn sees Rose's eyes flicker as he mentions the distillery, "...what?"

"Nothing." She says, a little too quickly.

"Rosie," he says gently, reaching in through the folds of the blanket to stroke her big toe, and she hears all the things he isn't saying. About how total honesty was the first thing they agreed upon, the first night they went out for pizza in Takodana City. How they've never been afraid to tell each other anything, about how forcing information out of each other is completely antithetical to the type of relationship both of them want.

She grabs a remaining fun size Three Musketeers from the orange plastic bowl on the coffee table and rips open the plastic, taking a long moment to chew the sticky nougat and let her thoughts burn more deeply into herself.

"I...something weird happened, today."

Finn sits up straighter. "What was it?"

"I heard yelling, and I saw Ben and Rey, and that lady Leia, the one who's been at Irresistible so often? All three of them in the parking area. They were fighting. Down on the corner I couldn't make out the words. Ben looked pissed, and both Rey and Leia looked like a mix of confused, pissed, and apologetic. Rey looked like she was, I don't know, like she was pleading for something, maybe? From Leia? But she just got in her car and drove away."

Finn's furrowed brow answers for her that he doesn't know any more about these goings-on than she does. "Then what?" He presses.

"Then Rey said something to Ben. She looked like she was gonna cry."

"Did you talk to her at all?"

"No. She was inside for about an hour and then she just locked up and left." Rose sighs. "And like, I just got the feeling that Leia isn't coming back." She bites her lip. "You told me yourself, how good that friendship was for Rey. How important it is for her to have healthy interactions that go beyond just 'I like your ice cream,' and, 'hey thanks come back again soon.' Someone she can actually talk to about her life and her problems. Someone besides you."

"And now you think that person won't be Leia."

"Now I'm almost positive it won't be." 

Finn lets out a long sigh. Rose can sense his disappointment. They both witnessed the happy, shiny way Rey would talk about this new person she had met, passing on secondhand tales of the stupid shit Leia's husband gets up to. Finn _does_ know what happened to Rey's family, and because of that knowledge, he was even more excited by the prospect of Leia than Rose. _She's never gonna be like Rey's mom,_ he had said, _but she might kinda evoke some of the same qualities. Help provide something familial that's been missing from Rey's life all this time._

_Her foster parents didn't do that?_ Rose had asked innocently.

Finn hadn't even turned to look at her. Just shook his head, staring out the window of Rose's car. _Her foster parents were not like mine,_ Finn says cryptically, but his tone tells Rose not to ask anything more.

"Couldn't we talk to Ben or something? Find out what the argument was about, try to get ahold of Leia? Explain her importance to Rey?" 

"Rose," Finn starts, breaking her from her thoughts, "there's one thing that I've learned from more than a decade of friendship with Rey that you may not have had to realize yet." 

"Hmm?"

"No matter how much we love someone, no matter how badly we want their lives to be good, you cannot make yourself responsible for their happiness. I can support Rey in every facet of her life, but at some point I can't manipulate the world based on what might be best for her. There's a big middle ground between not helping someone and crossing a lot of boundaries under the guise of helping them. We have to stay in that middle ground."

Rose considers this for a long moment. "So what's the middle ground, with regard to what I saw tonight?"

Finn purses his lips. "Ask her if she's doing all right. Find out if she wants to talk about it. Lament with her that something went badly. Then remind her that we love her, and that despite this, she will find a way to be happy. And then..." He trails off, extending a hand into the air.

"Move on," Rose supplies, and he hums in agreement, then lets his hand drop and gently hold her foot again.

"It's just so unfair," Rose complains.

"No one's life has taught me more about unfairness than Rey's." Finn says, his voice low and sad. "But I believe karma is finally coming back around on her side."

"It's her turn for things to get good." Rose adds.

"Yeah. It's been her turn for a long time now." 

They go silent after that, and Halloweentown comes back on, so Finn un-mutes the TV. The movie is hokey, way stupider than Rose remembered, and as Finn riffs on each new ridiculous moment, they slowly start to laugh again.

\-------

Through the rest of the fight, Ben reveals nothing more.

Despite Rey's repeated furious protests, he insists Leia come nowhere near First Order.

The argument fizzles, out, and Leia turns sad eyes on Rey, apologizing. Rey tries to insist that nothing's wrong, that their visits can continue unhindered, but without another word Leia gets in her car and drives off. 

Rey thinks of the way she felt when Leia would hug her. The way Leia's gaze grew no less steady as Rey alluded to something dark and sad in her past. Rey bites her lip to fight back against the prickling in her eyes. 

She turns to the sidewalk to find Ben hovering in his doorway, staring at her, jaw set and eyes blank. 

She swallows down the throb of loneliness threatening to overtake her and spits, "You happy with what you've done?" He doesn't flinch, just keeps staring, and it only stokes Rey's writhing gut. "Pushed a nice person away from me?" Her voice cracks, and still his face betrays no emotion. 

She's feels naked suddenly, revealing too much of herself, her inner fears and hopes.

He has slept in her bed. She welcomed him into it. He's fed her, kept her warm. She's provided moments of sanctuary from the chaos of his life. 

But they still don't do this: lay bare the ugly, buried parts of themselves. They've managed to get so close, yet still remain hidden from one another.

Ben's blank face is all she needs to tell her that.

Rey shrugs, defeated, and walks back into the parlor, ripping off her apron. 

She closes early that night. 

\-------

The fight that night is different from the others. Ben stops showing up. 

He's arrived unannounced at Rey's apartment a handful of times now, with ever-weaker excuses to be there, but every time she would open the door to him, as desperate to touch him as he seemed to touch her.

Furthermore, his appearances at First Order become more scant. He's no longer there every day, cleaning and prepping and holding private tastings during the day; manning the bar at night. 

Instead he's at the warehouse, apparently. Rose and Hux are standing on the sidewalk. Rose was asking to speak with Ben about buying, or borrowing, one of their barrels to display her variegated corn as part of her autumnal decorations. 

"Ben's not around. He's working with Mitaka more closely and tweaking our distilling process." Hux says, glancing back into First Order, "But we must have two dozen extra barrels at this point, so I'll just bring you one from the back room right now."

Rey sees Rose through the open door, blinking in delighted surprise, "Oh awesome. Thanks, Armitage."

He wanders away, and when one of the freezer cases slams shut, Rose looks up at Rey.

"'_Armitage?_'" Rey questions.

Rose shrugs. "Yeah, that's his name. He asked me to call him that after a few conversations."

Rey huffs, grinning. "You guys talk often?"

Rose tilts her hand back and forth. "Sometimes. The man's got four sisters, Rey. I get the impression he's rarely able to get a word in. If you just prove to him you'll listen, he's not such an ornery bastard anymore."

Leave it to Rose to always, _always,_ drag the earnest, empathetic truth out of even the most annoying people. Rey's known from when they first became friends that it was her superpower.

"That's fair." Rey mumbles.

Before Rose can continue humanizing him, he emerges from the tasting room rolling a barrel before him, concentrating so it stays on the narrow strip of sidewalk, and Rose throws Rey a quick wave before following him and disappearing out of sight. 

Rey goes back to scraping the thick layer of ice crystals from the inner wall of the freezer case. 

_Does Ben really want to work more closely on the distilling?_

_He just happened to start at the warehouse, stop showing up at First Order, and stop coming to her apartment all at the same time?_

Rey's not buying it. 

Something about Leia's clandestine visits were enough to drive him away.

And now Rey has to deal with a double loss.

The loss of a man who made her body feel so much more hers, so much more purposeful.

And the loss of a woman whose presence and wisdom and humor imbued Rey with a sense of...promise. The hope that if she just got to know this woman better they would forge a connection that would become important to her.

Helping fill a neglectful chasm inside of Rey, that she spends most of the time ignoring. 

As she scrapes and scrapes, her hand stiffening around the putty knife and growing numb from the cold, her anger grows.

_What right does he have to tell Leia she can't come around?_

His jurisdiction ended at the threshold of his tasting room. If she wanted to visit Rey at Irresistible he couldn't do anything to stop that. 

And yet he had, so here she is, feeling more alone than she has in months.

But Ben doesn't know that, and Rey's sure that even if he did, he wouldn't care. After all, he's ditched Rey like she's worthless because of some petty squabble he has with his mother. 

_Stop expecting so much from him._

He's proven time and time again to be terrible at all of this: communicating, giving generously, receiving gracefully. Just because Rey thinks she sees glimmers of someone like her peering through the cracks in his facade doesn't mean that's who he really is. And even if what she thinks she sees is true, who he is and how he acts are not one and the same. Therein lies the dangerous power of _choices_. 

So far, the choices Ben has made are not ones intended to protect Rey's feelings. She shouldn't hope for anything different. 

She sighs and stops working, taking a moment to flex her fingers and let some feeling return to them. She hears clattering from the kitchen, and then Finn barrels through the doors with his usual bustling efficiency.

"Scraped enough out to build an igloo yet?" He jokes, a huge tray of confections perfectly balanced on one hand. He sets it down by the pastry case, but turns when Rey doesn't respond. "What's up, Peanut?"

Since they met at thirteen, she's never kept a single thing from him. He known everything there is to tell, about Plutt, about Rey's overzealous bursts of determination to find her parents, about all her secret fears and hopes as they took this huge risk and started a business together.

Finn is her safe place, the person around whom she feels the most known, because he's the only one with all the information. It's a relief to feel truly seen, and still loved, still forgiven, by such a good person.

But _this_ feels too enormous to admit. It feels like a rabbit hole. First she would have to admit she's feeling lonely because Leia's gone, then she would have to explain why Leia isn't coming around anymore. Then she has to explain why Leia's banishment feels like a personal slight, which Finn will only understand if he knows that Rey and Ben's relationship is...personal. 

There's no way for her to admit some of it without admitting all of it. Even if she tried, she knows once she looks into Finn's trusting eyes and the words start to come out, she won't be able to make then stop. Through this sick, sad pit in her stomach, she knows she isn't ready for that. 

Besides, this is Ben's secret, too.

For as much as Rey hates him in this moment, she knows how hard he secretly grapples for control. Of everything, anything in his life. 

She won't be the one to take the control of this secret away from him. 

So instead she looks at Finn and shrugs one shoulder. "Just...having a hard time right now. Not sure why."

It certainly isn't the first time Rey's felt a sense of obscure malaise, nor is it the first time Finn's witnessed it. So he frowns, hums his displeasure, and pulls her into a warm, long hug. She sighs into his apron, smelling vanilla extract and lemon, and lets the familiar embrace soothe her.

When he pulls away, and fixes her hair for her, and makes sure she feels better before he walks away again.

She starts in on the ice in the second freezer case.

\-------

They were halfway through tying up their running shoes when Rose leans up to kiss him, pressing him back into the pile of jackets hanging next to the door. He stood in their soft embrace and held her for a moment, her head under his chin, and in the content silence, he whispers, "Rey almost told me today."

Rose doesn't move. "About what?"

"About that fight with Leia. She looked so sad, there was a moment where I was sure she would tell me."

"Maybe..." Rose ventures, voice uncertain, "maybe she thinks she can get past this on her own."

"I, yeah maybe," Finn concedes, but the look on Rey's face still nags at him. "I don't know. Something tells me that's not why she held her tongue."

Rose shrugs. "I think, unless she changes her mind, you'll have to be content with not knowing." Finn nods against the top of her head.

When they hit the pavement, he tries to focus on matching the tap of his footsteps perfectly to Rose's. 

\-------

Rey lies in bed, body strangely aching. She's a little sweaty, and she can feel the throb of her pulse between her legs. 

It seems she's grown used to the mind numbing, shattering orgasms only one person had ever helped her find. Without them, her insomnia has crept back in, as has this: this itchy aching, this hollowness she can't explain except to say that the bed feels too big.

Anyplace else, whenever she thinks of him, it's with hate. But here, in the dark and the solitude, when she knows nothing else will do, she lets herself continue to want him. 

She slips her hand into her underwear and thinks of the rare glimpses of his soft eyes, of the words he had whispered into her ear, and the words that were implied in the gentle, possessive way he held her. His drugging kisses and panting breaths and fervid pursuit of her pleasure. 

It brings her momentary relief, long enough to fall asleep. But each time she does this, she thinks it makes her hate him a little more. 

\-------

In anticipation of Thanksgiving, Finn designs a set of frankly adorable turkey and football cookies that sell out by the end of each day the entire week.

Rey stays ultra-late on Sunday night to bake four more batches he can frost in the morning. He tries to insist that he stay with her, but he opened that morning. Rey also suspects he arrived around 5 am to begin filling their half-gallon ice cream orders for the holiday on Thursday.

After waving him off with a snap of a kitchen towel right against his butt, she sets to work. Thankfully his tried-and-true vanilla bean dough is pretty straightforward, and before long, Rey has massive, smooth, speckled sheets she is attacking with the pair of cookie cutters, laying them out on industrial-size baking sheets precisely half an inch apart from one another. 

Once the first batch is in the oven she finishes closing up, doing a last wipe-down of the counters and tables, then hauling out the massive bag of trash.

All those years of labor for Plutt gave her one good thing: impressive upper body strength. 

She makes a right out of the propped-open back door, aiming for the dumpster between her and Tico's, and groans as she hefts the black plastic bag over the rusty edge of its fateful prison. 

She turns back, hands held aloft as she waits to get inside and wash them, and freezes.

There is a black 4Runner, parked at the end of the alley, a streetlight shining weakly down onto it. 

_I knew it._

She knew there must be a time when he was still coming around, checking on everything. He's too much of a control freak not to.

Is he really so petty that he'd come around midnight just to avoid her? Sure, he's proven his emotions are often irrational. But this, this inconvenience he's created for himself? This takes it to a whole new level. 

It's not like she wants to see him, or anything. If he wants to cause her less grief by working in the middle of the night, then so be it.

She thinks for a brief moment that she's in the clear, that he's inside making sure the appetizer plates are stacked at a perfect ninety-degree angle, or that the brass bar railing doesn't bear a single smudge.

She's wrong. Because when she squints, there is one dark eye peering around the body of the car, one pale elbow poking past the trunk. 

They hold that stalemate a moment longer before Rey mutters, "Spending more time at the warehouse, eh?"

He keeps staring for a long moment and finally comes around the side of the car. He's holding a copper tube that must be a component of one of the pot stills.

"How'd you find out about that?" He asks, holding his roof rack with his free hand, face tense.

"One day you're here, the next day you're gone. I was fine with it," he flinches, "but Rose asked Hux where you'd been, and I overheard them."

"Hmm. You were _fine with it_?" He echoes, and she nods, silent. Those flinty eyes stay trained on her, and she's grateful it's dark, because she can feel her cheeks heating up. "You didn't miss me here?"

"No."

"And you didn't miss me anywhere else?" He says rapidly.

The image of him filling her entire apartment doorway comes back to her. She expected to see the palm trees, the roof of her neighbor's house, a slice of the sky, but when she opened the door her vision was entirely occupied by Ben. Seconds later and they were kissing as he pushed her towards her bed with gentle hands. 

She grits her teeth at the way her body calls for him.

"Nope. I'm glad you're here now though." She says lightly, crossing her arms.

"Are you?" He says, with a doubting lilt.

"Yeah. I wanted to ask you if I shouldn't be expecting Leia to come around anymore."

He flinches again, harder this time, including that twitch in his right eye she's seen innumerable times. He doesn't answer, staring down at the ground, and she makes a decision, in that moment. 

_I'm not letting this go._

"Didn't realize you'd go so far as to make me lose customers." She spits acerbically.

It gets his attention. His head whips up and he closes half the distance between them, thrown into darkness and then back into light once he's parallel to her door. "I think considering the special circumstance, you could stand to sacrifice one patron."

"Oh could I?" 

"Yes. Considering the unexpected success your parlor has proven to be, I'm confident one customer won't mean the difference betwe-"

"Unexpected? What, we don't seem like we would become a success? What's your implication?" She feels her anger begin to flow through her, a sharp sting in her chest. He opens his mouth to retort but she doesn't let him. "You know what, nevermind. That's not the point of this conversation."

"Well what is the point?"

"What if there had been other people in parlor? Who might have seen you verbally attack someone I was chatting with only a moment before? How would that make me look? What if a critic decided to make a surprise visit to me, as has happened before, and they couldn't get in the door because of some people having a screaming match on the sidewalk?"

He's silent, jaw working back and forth.

"God, nothing? Not a word?" She huffs. "None of those thoughts even crossed your mind, did they? You didn't spare a single thought for how your little argument might affect anyone else. You're so fucking selfish-"

He grimaces. "Selfish? You think you know me well enough to make that kind of judgment?"

Rey twists the hem of her shirt around and around her finger until the blood's getting cut off. She stays quiet for a moment, just looking at him, watching as the blaze of self-righteousness in his face falters.

"I think I know you well enough to recognize that your selfishness isn't innate. That it's not who you really are." _The way he's touched her, cared for her, fed her._ "And that's even worse." In the momentary silence, all that can be heard is the far-off roar of the tide. 

"What do you mean, it's even worse?"

"You choose to be mean. You choose to hurt people."

He goes completely still. 

"It isn't in your nature. It's what you wanted to do." The lump in her throat threatens to choke her. Before it can, she croaks out, "How many times have you known something felt wrong but did it anyway? Did what you didn't really want to?"

_Like scream at your own mother? The only one you'll ever have? Or go along with the ideas of an evil person? Or ignore the people who care about you? Or inflict your anxiety and insecurity on anyone unfortunate enough to meet you?_ She wants to add, but she bites her tongue. 

He doesn't answer, and she doesn't need him to. The oven timer screams from inside the kitchen, and Rey takes it as her cue to start towards her door. 

He backs up as she gets closer, and it hits her like a tidal wave. 

Two weeks ago he would have stayed put and let her brush past him. He might have skimmed the outside of her thigh with his fingertips as she went. He might have glanced around the alley then pressed her against the brick, just long enough to breathe in her scent and lay a light kiss on her covered shoulder, creating unspoken promises of desire that would soon be fulfilled. 

Instead he maintains ten feet of empty air between them. Rey slams the back door shut, less to make a point than to be sure he doesn't see her when the first tear falls to her cheek. 

Before she can take one step to pull the tray from the oven, she freezes yet again.

There's Poe, leaned up against the fridge, arms crossed, and that all-knowing look in his eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suffice it to say, Poe knows all.


	14. Bringing Darkness to the Fore

Good evening, darlings!

First on the agenda: The votes are in! After more than a week of time to choose your favorites, [Love me for the House and Grave, and for Something Higher](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638181/chapters/54104758#workskin) is the resounding winner of the "Which story should Liz write next" battle jam.

For anyone who voted for Story 2, [Everywhere but Beside You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638181/chapters/54104860#workskin), never fear: it will be up next after 'Something Higher' is complete. 

For anyone who may have missed this boat altogether: My next story will be a modern AU involving Rey and Ben as two former convicts given the death penalty, then both acquitted, and their attempts to re-assimilate into normal society. It will begin posting when Heart of Hate wraps up. Thanks again to all of you who voted and I hope you're looking forward to the start of these new stories as much as I am looking forward to writing them!

\--------

"What are you doing here?" Rey says, shocked by how normal and curious she manages to make her tone. 

"I was driving home from the airport and took the beach road because there's an accident on the highway," Poe explains. "Saw your lights on and I was wondering who was still here." 

For the smallest second, Rey thinks he won't bring it up. 

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That. Outside. With Solo."

She debates pretending the whole conversation was just about the Leia incident. 

But she doesn't know what Poe heard. How _much_ he heard. Too much else was said, for her to make such a claim convincing. 

And it won't work, anyway. Poe's always been able to see through any lie, to realize the truth as masterfully as others tried to hide it. It's what makes him such a good businessman.

So she tells the truth.

Sort of.

"We've uh," she twists the hem of her shirt around her finger again, "we've been at odds ever since he opened up First Order."

She pauses, but Poe just keeps staring ceaselessly. _Doesn't the man ever need to blink?_

Apparently not, so she goes on. "At first it was just about business stuff. The water main shutoffs, him forgetting to lock the upstairs office when he was the last one to leave, his annoyance that Irresistible attracted too many children and ruined the draw for his target audience." She waves her hand dismissively. "But then it became more personal. The snide comments became about my capabilities as a business owner, or about my personality. And since he's not exactly Miss America either, I dished it right back to him." 

Poe nods, but still says nothing.

"And then this woman started coming into the parlor in the evenings. She was really kind, and funny, and just seemed interested in chatting with me. I liked her, a lot." She can't help but smile a little, remembering Leia's cackle when Rey smacked the back of her head on the inside of a freezer case one night. "But it turned out she's Ben's mom, and they're in the middle of a fight, or some shit. He...drove her away from here. And it's all part of this pattern, how he can't let me have anything that's good. Pride in my own success, joy in my customer base, the friendship of a really kind person who I enjoyed." 

Poe takes a breath, runs his hand over his ever-present stubble.

"Is he around much?" He asks. "In the day-to-day, do you run into him frequently?"

_Not since he decided I'm not worth fucking._

"No. Less now that things are off the ground for them. The rest of the staff run things, mostly."

"Mmm." Poe intones, nodding. "Then I'd say all this isn't worth your time. If you had to work alongside the guy every day, I'd tell you to hash it out until you'd reached a truce. But don't bother putting yourself through that if you rarely even see him. Just let the grudge go."

She sighs, and she knows for the sake of escaping from this conversation she should just agree with him, but a defensive pull arises.

"But-"

Probably anticipating her entire argument, Poe shakes his head, shutting her up. "You know the meaning of your own success, Rey. I know it too. Trust your business consultant, I've seen the numbers." Against her will, his comment makes her grin. "And I've seen the way you make people feel, too. You've given them a place where they can come in and be recognized. Like a friend, even if all you do is remember their name when they walk in. There are so few places like that anymore, and people need it. It makes them feel like they matter." 

Rey feels that lump in her throat for a third time tonight, but for a very different reason. 

"No man, even one as obnoxious and imperious as him, can change that. You built this empire and it won't fall under the weight of a few harsh words from a guy who wouldn't even dance at his best friend's wedding." 

Rey digs her nails into her palm, suppressing memories of the wedding. 

She sighs. "Yeah you're right." There's a dose of fondness in Poe's smirk. "I just hate the thought of being..._hated._"

Rey is well-aware that Poe doesn't even know Ben. She's pretty sire they've met thrice: at the tux fitting, at Hux's bachelor party, and at the wedding. Yet Rey believes what he says next.

"Ben doesn't hate you, Rey. He doesn't understand you. So he's responded by trying to make you into something you're not. Something he can understand."

Rey stares at her friend: so steadfast, sure of himself in a way she's never been. She wonders if he, too has anxieties that creep up on him at night, when he's in bed alone and can't rebuff thoughts of his future, or his past. 

Somehow it's impossible for her to picture such humanity on so stalwart a figure as Poe. He's the lighthouse in the storm, all the reliability of Finn with none of the lightness and the humor. 

Before she can reply, she and Poe have the same realization in the same moment, and her eyes widen. "Oh, goddamn it."

She burned the cookies.

\-------

Poe slams the door to his Audi, once Rey has a fresh batch of dough in the oven and she's assured him she'd be heading home within the hour. The lights are out in the parlor now, throwing his lone car into darkness. A far-off streetlamp reflects off the chrome of Rey's bike, chained up near the red door. 

His hands grip the soft leather of the steering wheel even though he isn't in drive. The engine isn't even on. Some of Rey's recent words drift back across his mind.

_...they're in the middle of a fight, or a falling out, or some shit._

"Jesus Christ." He mumbles to himself, shifting forward to rest his head on the wheel as well.

If only Rey knew. That he grew up two blocks over from the Solos. That his mom and Leia were on a community food pantry committee together. That Ben and he took business classes together in college. 

If only she knew what Poe does, about Ben and his parents: the tension between them is no simple family fight. Enough people have told Poe enough details over the past decade for him to glean that much, and feel certain about it.

Poe plays confidante to so many people. It's because they value his directness, his intolerance for opacity of truth. He sees things, and talks about them, the way they really are. He does so expertly and without hesitation. 

In all of these conversations, Poe's learned to employ two rules: 

_Rule 1. Don't offer an opinion if you don't have the whole story._   
_Rule 2. Once you know the whole story, don't meddle. _

Yet, as he rolls his forehead back and forth, probably imprinting the car's logo into his skin, he's certain of two more things.

_What Rey told him tonight isn't the whole story._   
_Based on what he knows now, he is, with absolute surety, going to meddle. _

He turns the key and drives off into the night pondering, trying to fill in the gaps of what he hasn't been told. Yet.

\-------

Ben's just walked in the door, a thick stack of tax paperwork under his arm, when his phone rings. 

He sighs, throws his keys on the couch, grabs the paperwork to free his right hand, and reaches into his back pocket on the last ring.

He doesn't recognize the number, but with the number of suppliers, investors, staff, and others he interacts with each day, he takes every call. It's gotten him stuck in hellscape of an attempted scam now and then, but he's also never missed anything important.

"Hello?" He wedges the phone between his shoulder and his ear. 

There's a long, silent pause, and he sighs, ready to hang up before he can get roped into the vicious cycle of someone's attempt to get his social security number.

Finally, a voice.

A familiar one.

"Hey, kid."

Ben's heart kicks into overdrive. No wonder he didn't recognize the number. He deleted this one years ago.

"Dad?"

"Yep." Han sounds even more uncomfortable than Ben feels, if that's possible. "How are ya?"

Ben sinks down onto the arm of the couch involuntarily, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. 

"Fine. Busy." He offers tersely. He tries to think back, and realizes he can't remember their last conversation.

It's been at least three years, though. Ben's about to ask the question hanging between them when Han beats him to it.

"I'm uh, I'm not gonna dick around with a bunch of small talk, kid. I don't think that's what you want. I'm calling because I wanted to discuss what happened with your mother."

Ben's already bowed spine stiffens. First Rey, only yesterday, and now his dad wanting to talk about the same thing. The thing Ben wants so desperately to ignore. 

"What do you want to say about it?" 

"She wasn't there to spy on your business." 

Ben grunts. "Certainly seemed like it."

"She was there because I wouldn't stop talking about it."

"Talking about what?"

"You. The distillery. Wondering if it was doing well, wondering what it looked like. But mostly wondering about you. If you were...healthy, if what you were doing was making you happy." 

Ben sits, stunned. There's a stretched-out pause, like his dad is waiting for him to speak, but Han never, _never_ says things like this. 

Han clears his throat, and Ben's sure that he's trying to force himself to say more, when his instincts tell him to stay quiet. To keep his thoughts and feelings hidden. After all, Ben had to inherit that from somewhere.

"I just wanted her to be there long enough to get a glimpse. Of the place and of you. She got both the first time she ever went. But then she told me she really liked that girl at the ice cream parlor, and since you hadn't noticed her around, she was going to go back." Ben blows out an angry breath. "I begged her not to. I knew she couldn't sneak around there much longer without you finding out. I told her I knew what I wanted to know, I was content. But..." his dad's sonorous voice falters, "but I think once she saw you, she wanted to know more. Wanted anything she could get from a few steps away."

Ben clenches his jaw, reaching back to dig his fingers into the hard wooden frame of the couch. The pain centers him. He needs a cigarette. It's been years since he felt that craving.

"Well I think you probably know how I feel, about mom feeling she's entitled to all that information."

"Yeah, I know."

"And you can probably guess how I feel about you wanting to know, too."

"Look Ben, I don't care about what you had for breakfast this morning or how recently you got a haircut. That's all your mother. But I wanted to be sure my only child wasn't working himself to death, or starving himself to pay the rent on his business. That's what I cared about."

"Thanks for your concern."

"It was." His dad says, voice hardening. "It was concern. I was worried about you."

"You had plenty of years to be worried and chose not to." 

"I never stopped worrying."

"Awesome. Exactly what every kid wants to hear. Don't call me again, dad." Ben lifts his phone from his ear.

"Stop it." Han growls. "Don't hang up. You know that isn't what I mean. I worried because I cared. Your mother pushed you because she cared. Luke gave you the-"

"Don't you dare act like that man cares about me." Ben bellows, and he hears some low voices from out on the sidewalk go silent. His face burns in embarrassment.

Han sighs. Despite the years of distance, Ben knows exactly what his dad is thinking.

_ Luke isn't the point of the conversation, Han should have known that would only piss Ben off. Han needs to stick to the reason he called._

"We made a lot of mistakes." Han sounds weary, pained, and it makes Ben's eyes widen.

Ben's never heard his father's voice sound any way other than hard and certain. It makes the fury drain out of Ben's chest. "We were so ready to be parents, loved you so much. But I think we lost sight of the future. I think we forgot that at some point you'd stop being a child and become a whole person. So much more complicated than just teaching you please and thank you, and helping you pick out your clothes for school. We weren't ready for what was next, and so we fucked it up."

Ben's arm slides away from the couch. He swallows hard, against a sharp lump in his throat. He's exhausted, stressed, and vulnerable because of it. Another time he might have been able to throw up a mental shield against this sort of talk but it's so unexpected, the closest thing to an apology his family has ever offered. Between that and the timing, he can't handle it. He feels his eyes sting.

"Nothing I did was ever good enough for you." It slips out unsolicited. "Even when it was what you said you wanted."

"We just wanted to you build something you could be proud of, kid." 

Ben sniffs, hard, swallowing the tears filling up his sinuses. "You needed to show me I was a person to be proud of first, dad."

They sit in silence for a long, long time. The lingering husk of Ben's anger houses his sadness now. Though this is maybe the most honest conversation they've ever had, he just wants it to end. 

Han sighs. "Look, you're grown up now. Things could change."

"What are you saying?"

"We're never gonna get past this if you don't learn to let go of what happened. It was so long ago."

Ben shakes his head, closes his eyes. "I'll never let it go until you learn to apologize."

"Isn't that what I just did?"

"Not quite." Ben wipes his eyes. "And I'll need one from all three of you."

Han snorts. "Not a chance, kid."

"Well," Ben whispers, and stares out the window at Star as she wanders into the reach of a streetlamp, "then I guess things aren't gonna change."

He's just about to hang up again, when Han warns, "Your mother wanted to talk to you, too. So if you get another call, just know it isn't me."

He grits his teeth again, audibly, remembering Leia's falsely innocent face as he fought with Rey in the parking lot. 

"Tell her what I said," Ben mutters, "make sure she hears it. Then we'll see if she calls." 

Before his dad can say anything else, to make him feel even more like he's choking, he hangs up.

Star comes in through the cat flap, mewls softly, then darts over and settles down on top of his feet. 

\-------

Poe pulls into the last open spot in front of Irresistible. It's just after the workday, and it appears there's some event over at First Order. As he wanders by, he can see a flyer in the window proclaiming Wednesday to be trivia night. He cracks a grin at the sight of Hux with a microphone held under his chin.

The powers of the universe must want him to have this conversation, too, because when he enters the parlor, Rey and Jessika are behind the counter and only one group of giggling teenagers occupies the big corner booth. 

He grins at Jess, who looks up first, then turns the smile on Rey when Jess exclaims his name. "Figured I'd see what the finished product of these Thanksgiving cookies looks like."

Rey smiles back, then makes her way over to the pastry case and retrieves them. Just as she's about to slide both cookies onto a plate, Poe glances furtively over at Jess and finds her at the far end of the counter, pumping more hot fudge onto a teen's sundae and chatting amiably.

"Actually, want to bag them up? I was hoping we could walk down to the beach and talk for a minute."

Rey's eyes dart up immediately, assessing. 

Poe's more of a reactionary friend: eager to respond to conversations, but not to start them. Nonetheless, she nods, retrieving a waxed paper sleeve and dropping them in, then snaps off her gloves and mutters to Jess, "I'm gonna take my fifteen, okay?"

Jess nods over her shoulder as she shakes some nuts over-top of the sundae, and Rey leaver her apron and hat on the counter. There's a slight red indentation where her hat pressed into her forehead.

When they've sat down on that bench, in the sand but not too far off the sidewalk, Rey turns to him immediately. "So what's up?"

Poe's every instinct not to get involved fights against him as he puts a sentence together.

"I've been thinking more about our conversation last night. And now that I've had some time to consider it, there are a few more things I think we should say."

She sets her jaw, protruding her lower teeth a little, but nods.

"You said something about Ben and his mom being in the middle of a fight or something, right?"

"Right. That's the reason he doesn't want her around here, I think."

"Did he..." Poe falters, "did he tell you any more? About why he doesn't want her around?"

"No, and frankly I don't care." Rey grumbles. "What could it possibly be, that he thinks this sort of boundary is appropriate?"

Poe just stares at her for a long moment, letting her contemplate all the things it _could possibly be_. She seems to get the message, and shifts around a little.

"Don't you think it's maybe...misguided of you? To expect him to value your friendship with her over what is clearly something very painful with he-?"

She blinks. "No. No, I don't think it's misguided for me to ask him to mind his own busin-"

"Let me put it this way." Poe says, showing the faintest hint of exasperation, leaning towards her. "Tell me someone in your life with whom you've had a really dysfunctional relationship."

Rey frowns for a moment. "Plutt. The last guy I was placed with in the foster system."

She wrinkles her nose like the memory smells bad, and Poe has to admit, even that man's _name_ is odorous.

"So hypothetically, just roll with me here." He takes a breath. "How would you feel if you came to work one day and noticed Plutt sitting in First Order, sharing a drink with Ben and laughing over something?"

She goes to speak, but Poe cuts her off. "You'd be furious. And then, when you tried to confront Ben about it, what if he tried to disregard you by claiming that he and Plutt were _friends,_ and you're just expected to deal with it?"

"This doesn't make any sense!" She glances around the beach, assuring herself of their privacy. "Plutt was..." she sighs, "a monster. He used me, exploited me, never once showed me a scrap of affection and barely any kindness. I would have every right to be pissed if Ben made friends with him. But Leia is nothing like that."

"All right, that's fair." Poe concedes. He knows Rey'll need to gain a little ground if he wants to keep her in this conversation. "But...could you be open to the idea that Leia exists somewhere in between '_Plutt-level bad_' and '_worthy of sainthood_?' That maybe she's not as amazing as you think she is?"

He can see Rey, ready to retort without considering his point, so he speaks over her, "How well do you really know her, Rey? Really?"

_Bingo._

Rey's mouth slowly shuts, her eyes dart over the sand as she considers it. "I'm not saying your friendship wasn't real, or anything," Poe adds more softly, "but, Rey. She never even told you Ben was her son. Never told you why she felt the need to sneak around just to see him."

Rey's eyes finally latch back onto his, and what he sees there is what he always knew was lurking underneath her anger.

Pure, unadulterated _hurt_.

"If she can't even drop by to say hello to him, if she can't even approach him without causing the reaction he had...you and I both know that's more than just 'the middle of a fight.' She kept an important truth from you, and yet you're still acting like Ben is the problem." He's practically whispering now, as he watches her force herself to confront all the truths he's currently verbalizing. "I'm not saying he didn't do anything wrong, but...it's more complicated than what you want to believe."

"I just..." Rey begins, her voice nasal with her developing tears, "yeah." She sighs, and reaches down to haphazardly pull her boots and socks off, burying her toes in the sand as one tear tracks down her cheek. "When Ben first, like, accused Leia of sneaking around, she tried to play it off. I knew in a second she was faking it. I knew he was right. And after, that was it. It was like I didn't exist anymore. They argued and she just left, she barely even looked at me again."

Like a swollen river breaking through a dam, her words are flowing, she's practically tripping over herself to get them out, and Poe just watches in placid patience. 

"And it fucking sucks!" Rey exclaims, "Because it's not just like I lost Leia in all of this, but it's fucked up everything with Ben, too, just when I thought things might be getting be-"

She stops speaking suddenly, eyes widening.

_Why did she cut herself off?_

Poe straightens up. If she had kept talking, mentioned believing things were finally becoming more cordial between her and her fellow business owner, Poe would have had no reason to doubt her.

But instead, she thinks she slipped. She thinks she said something she shouldn't. 

_Rule #1: Don't offer an opinion if you don't have the full story._

He scratches his stubble for a moment, running his fingers over his chin, then asks plainly, "What aren't you telling me, Rey?"

He can see the gears in her head turning, like a mouse in a maze, pursuing every route for escape only to realize each is a dead end. He can also see when she slumps in defeat.

She's silent for another long moment, staring out at the water. "Ben and I have a..relationship. That goes way beyond the petty squabbles I told you about last night."

Poe's unspoken questions become the third occupant on the bench.

"An...intimate relationship." Rey clarifies. Poe fights to school his shock. "It started out as some sort of angry thing, an outlet to express the fact that we were attracted to one another but...loathed one another."

"Hate sex?" He offers bluntly, and Rey blushes scarlet all the way up to her eyes, but nods.

"But lately things had changed." She tilts her head to one side. "They got...softer. We stopped needing a fight as an excuse to be together. I thought. I thought he might want to be around me, maybe." 

Poe refrains from mentioning that in all the years he's known Ben, he's only ever seen him express mild interest in his friends and quietly tolerate everyone else. He's never really seemed like he _wanted_ to be around anyone.

Poe's pulled from this thoughts by a quiet sob, which startles him a little, and his hand instantly finds its way to her shoulder, with a steady, firm grip. "Hey..."

"I know I have you," she begins, voice thick, "and Finn and Rose, and other people who care about me, but-" the word chokes off into another sob, "I'm lonely, Poe. I'm really fucking lonely, and," she slaps her hands down on the seat of the bench, "he started to be so tender with me, and caring, and he made me feel like something was changing, maybe. Like I might not be so lonely anymore. But instead now it all got ripped away and this fucking chasm inside me feels twice as big as it ever did before."

Poe leans over and fully engulfs Rey in his arms, letting her head fall to his shoulder. The last wisps of sunlight faded while they sat here, but Poe is grateful, because he can hear the trivia teams spilling out of First Order, and its unlikely anyone can see them. 

He supposes he has the whole story now, which means he can finally break Rule #1. 

"I think," Poe finally intones, after perhaps five minutes go by, during which her tears have ceased and her breathing has calmed, "that you need to get your companionship from someone who's a little more stable than him."

She sits up, pulls a knee onto the bench and drapes an elbow over it, then presses her mouth into her forearm. She seems to mull his words for a long moment, then lifts her mouth away just enough to mutter, "If you'd told me that two months ago, I would have agreed with you."

"But not now?"

She shakes her head.

"Why not?" Poe presses.

"Because," she says, with another sigh, wearier this time, "I don't think I want someone more stable. I..." she blinks at herself in disbelief. "I think I want _him_."

\-------

Ben resolutely ignores his phone after Han's call. Fuck work obligations: if anyone else tries to call, it'll have to wait.

He stalks around his house for half an hour, that toxic sludge of anger, resentment, repressed memories, and bitter disappointment poisoning his insides. He cleans and organizes and takes care of all the tasks he's been putting off for weeks while he was busy at the distillery.

And not a single second of it makes him feel better. It's nearly two in the morning, but he knows if he bothers laying down he'll never be able to sleep. He keeps remembering the time he made them an anniversary dinner.

_He listened to their low voices in the dining room, plating the dishes so carefully, carrying them so gingerly to the table. He must have been what...thirteen, fourteen? Buzzing with excitement at what he had made for them, so eagerly anticipating their comments. _

_But in between courses, his mom had floated into the kitchen where he sat reading a sci-fi paperback, waiting to hear that they were ready for dessert. _

_He looked up at her brightly._

_The light slowly faded from his eyes as she explained what he needed to do differently next time, to properly tenderize the meat. And then she'd started in on the marinade, and explained how the wine he chose had tasting notes that really told him a lot about which spices he should have picked, and before he can even muster a reply she's realized he's serving tiramisu for dessert, and she's concerned he'll soak the ladyfingers in too much espresso, and she might as well just do it herself, and since Dad offered to clean up he's welcome to just go to his room for the night. _

_He sat, dumbfounded and disappointed. He lingered, waiting for her to realize what she'd done and hastily construct some praise, but she never did, just hummed along to the Sinatra song playing on the stereo as she layered his perfect, silken custard inside the dessert bowl._

_He had to pass his dad, still sitting at the table, to get to the hall. One look and he knew his dad heard everything; knew his dad recognized how he felt. He slowed down, thinking his dad might salvage the situation, but Han just lowered his eyes._

_After years of that, Ben got so used to that sinking feeling that it became something else. Became a permanent part of him. For a while he was a groveling mess, scrabbling for any shred of approval he could get. But the approval was never freely given, always fought for, always solicited. He was still so sad. Then the sadness morphed into anger, and determination, and a self-defense mechanism with a hair trigger. _

For years, fighting with anyone who questioned him was his only outlet. Then he found surfing, and that helped some. He got his temper mostly under control, well enough to actually make friends and spend time thinking what he wanted to do with his life. 

Recently, though, he'd found a new outlet. It had started with his same old story: quarreling with Rey every time she challenged him, conceding nothing, even when her thoughts and ideas made sense. 

But it changed. He started seeking her out before things got to the boiling point; got his hands on her skin and her eyes staring into him before he lost control, before the gaping maw of resentment threatening to swallow him. When he could see her, when he was near her...when he was inside her, she was so all-consuming that she could crowd out whatever else he was thinking or feeling.

It was addictive. It was an escape. It worked every time, and he couldn't deny himself. That must be why he started so many arguments he knew were inane even as he ignited them. He brought all his darkness to the fore, and then with her, wrung it out of himself. It felt cathartic.

He supposes their situation might seem dirty to a lot of other people. But not to him. It's made him feel clean.

He thinks of the way she laughed at some of his jokes, at the gratitude in her voice when he handed her a bowl of food while she laid in bed. He thinks of the fervid, possessive look in her eyes, in his car in the back alley, when she said she wanted it to remain a secret between them. It was _theirs,_ she had told him.

What _it_ was, Ben still can't say. But it was something they shared. And it made him realize that he likes her. And that when he's with her, there are moments where he likes himself.

Ben remembers his mother, and feels his jaw tighten. He'd run away from her, and yet she couldn't abide the distance. Couldn't stay away from him. Couldn't stay away from something Ben was just starting to realize was good. Some-_one_ good, and he had built it. He had found her. 

This thing with Rey had given him hope. And now, just like they crushed that feeling two decades ago, his family has crushed it again. 

He pictures never ascending those creaky wooden stairs again, anticipating relief from the storm brewing inside him. He pictures never waking up in her bed, her skin looking so starkly golden against her dingy floral sheets. Never cobbling together some sad excuse of a dinner from her pantry and quietly worrying about her nutrition. Never again sliding away from her body after they come, his hand lingering on her hip or in her hair, or cupping her breast; savoring the sense of calm it brings. 

Never furtively glancing through the shared window at work, hoping to catch her eye long enough to jerk his head towards the First Order storage room, silently communicating his intent for them.

All of that's gone now.

\-------

Out of respect for her staff, Rey agrees to close both the day before and the day of Thanksgiving. On Tuesday night, she's eating the last of Finn's turkey cookies: passionfruit frosting on an autumnal spiced cookie, with five uniquely colored feathers. 

She's chatting with Jess as they put the clean scoops away and give the counters their final wipe down. Rey's already done some prep: She'll be opening up alone on Friday.

When the clean scoop drawer is so full they can barely close it, Jess pushes the baby hairs out of her face and turns to Rey. "Mind if I head out? Tomorrow I've got a flight to Yavin, and I still haven't packed. My mom has a mile long list of specialty foods she wants me to bring her from Serville's in Takodana."

Wistfully, Rey mutters, "Serville's has the _best_ orange fig jam." 

"Wouldn't you know it, that's one of the things on her list." They grin.

"She has good taste." 

"She'll be very flattered to hear my boss feels that way. She thinks very highly of you." 

Rey's heart flutters a little, but she schools herself, reacts casually. "Well I hope you'll tell her what an important part of this you are, and how highly _I_ think of _you._"

Jess grins and picks at the rag in her hands. "Thanks Rey, that means a lot." Rey latches onto the sense of warmth and friendship between them, and she tries to make it feel like enough.

She spends all of Wednesday morning staffing the shop, but not like normal. For four hours they're open only for pickup: for the dozens and dozens of pies, and nearly seventy gallons of ice cream, that people pre-ordered to have ready for Thanksgiving Day. Rey slides each and every blue box and bag across the counter with a huge smile. She can't even count the number of times she's wished people a happy holiday. 

When the last customer is sent off, she flips the lights and heads out the back. She pulls a beanie on over her braid but under her bike helmet, and churns her legs around and around until all she can feel is the burning in her quads and the damp, freezing ocean air whipping across her face. 

She makes it home in record time. She locks up her bike. She catches up on recent episodes of SNL with Bebe in her lap, indulging the increasingly loud feline by sharing her party size bag of Pirate's Booty. She barely manages to brush her teeth before she falls into the dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted. 

\-------

Rey starts awake in the middle of the night, chest heaving. Her shirt feels damp, her skin a little tacky with sweat, and as she stares up at the ceiling, her panting breaths bring her breasts in and out of the lower edge of her sight.

Her nipples are hard. 

And there's a throbbing insistence residing between her legs, a craving that crept to her uninvited. In her sleep, it has rooted deep and stoked hotter. 

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, but the images that flood back to her aren't from dreams. They're from memories.

_He snuck into the kitchen at the parlor, running his hands up and down her sides while she washed dishes._

_"I don't have time, I have too much to do." She breathed, placing the clean cone rack on a towel. Even as she's telling him no, she arches her ass back into him, stifling a moan as he pushes his hips into her, in kind. _

_He leaned down to suck on her earlobe and whispered, "There's only one thing on my to-do list."_

_He gave her hip a resounding smack, and she busted up laughing, cheeks reddening, embarrassed_ for_ him at how idiotic that was._

_"You are so fucking stupid," she turned to muffle her laughter into his arm, and he hummed his agreement. She looked up, and for a second she's stunned. _

_She could remember months ago, wondering what he looked like when he smiled._

_She didn't have to wonder anymore. _

_"Then it's a good thing you aren't using me for my brains, eh?"_

_She laughed again, but her smile faded a little, and she traced a hand down his body until she reached his waistband._

_She gently grasped what she found inside there, making him suck in a sharp breath, "Nah, it's other parts of you I'm concerned about." _

_Before they got caught up in it she drifted away from him, rattling off everything she needed to get done that afternoon._

_He and his half-erection stared daggers at her for a moment, but his gaze lost its vitriol._

_"I'll see you soon." She breathed from across the room, and he nodded minutely, then disappeared out the back before they could get caught._

Before she can second guess what she's doing, Rey's hand has drifted over and she's holding her own breast, cupped hand rasping against her nipple, remembering the heat in his eyes and the soft, soft way his hands mapped the shape of her body. 

She slips her free hand into her underwear.

_It was soon after they first fucked in her apartment. Ben stayed late to host a private tasting party at First Order. Rey offered to close up, lets Finn head home, then watched through the window until the last of the party group had left._

_When Ben entered the storage room to put away a stack of serving dishes, she was leaning against the brick wall in the corner, arms held behind her back, staring at him._

_She watched his eyes roam her figure and knew he could tell she was only wearing the apron. _

_"I know this outfit is like, a violation of sanitation code, or whatever, but can you suspend your rule-following long enough to fuck me?" _

_His face split into a grin for a moment, but he kept staring at her, and the smile dropped off. The seconds stretched out, and her heart picked up. _

_"What's wrong?" He finally whispered._

_"Nothing." She said it a little too fast, and he knew, and she knew he knew, because he just keeps waiting, hands on his hips. Finally, her mask of seduction slipped away. "I uh, I got a call, about an hour ago. We lost the Real Estate Association gala. They cancelled the catering contract."_

_She flared her nostrils, looked down at the floor. "And like, I know I shouldn't be upset, because we've been so lucky, and we have a million other catering events to plan for. If anything I should be grateful such a huge obligation got taken off my plate, because I can focus on the shop, and ju-"_

_She didn't even hear him cross the room, but suddenly there he was, interrupting her inner monologue, not by speaking but by hoisting her up and ripping the apron away, staring down at her skin, in that way he has._

_That way where he looks almost angry, but she knows it wasn't not anger, just very intense something else._ _ Something that doesn't have a name. Lust never felt right to describe it, nor desire. _

_Whatever it is, it ignited her. She tore at his collar ineffectively, only tugging it to the side instead of freeing his neck which she was desperate, so desperate to suck on. _

_He was more focused on his pants, one hand still helping hold her up while the other fell to his hips, so she abandoned his shirt to tear at the belt and zipper._

_Just freeing his cock wasn't enough, it seemed, because he pushed his pants down as much as he could with one arm then reached back and pulled his shirt off in one swift motion, pressing his skin to hers and sighing for a moment. Rey saw his eyes slip shut and wondered if he was savoring it. Savoring it the same way she was. _

_Then, with no preamble, no fingers playing with her core or mouth ghosting over her breast, he lined himself up and pressed inside her._

_The suddenness of it only made her even hotter, blanking out her mind even faster, until she was mindless but for the way he was rolling his hips, how deep he felt inside her, how the rough scrape of her back against the brick took her away from the sadness she felt before._

_He thrust aimlessly, with little rhythm but so much determination, so much insistence, that it felt like he was trying to fuck the anxiety right out of her. _

_Each time he slid to the hilt, pressing so fully against her from hip to shoulder, she sighed,_ _ at the rightness of how it felt. _

_It was like with each press of his groin against her clit and each spike of pleasure that darted through her, a little bit of her got exorcised. A little bit of the bad stuff. _

_He drove into her faster, arms curling around her back and hugging her as close as possible as his hips continued to piston, and soon she couldn't contain the sensations within her anymore, moaning into his neck and gasping for air. She felt lightheaded, like she couldn't get enough oxygen, but she knew it was just him, just the power of this taking her over. _

_She feels him bury himself so deep, into a place within her only he knows, and when he stayed there for a moment, grinding into her and putting pressure on her clit again, she was done for._

_Her shallow breathing cut off completely, mouth falling open as she felt her body pulse. She dug her nails into his back in an attempt to ground herself, because otherwise, she felt like she was floating twenty feet above the ground. _

_He came, groaning softly as he did, hands scrabbling to try and press her even closer but it wasn't possible. There was so much contact between them that Rey imagined she could sink into him, meld with him, if she tried hard enough. _

_They come down slowly, their breaths even out. He turned and set her on an empty oak barrel, and he hummed as his hands ran over the parts of her back that got scraped on the brick._

_"Sorry," he mumbled._

_"Don't be." _

_He was still pressed to her, but their sweat was cooling and the storage room was cold, so he backed up and pulled his pants up. Before he could do so himself, Rey reached out and tucked him back in, zipping up his jeans, while his arms hung limp and he watched her. He found his t-shirt flung into a corner and was about to pull it on when he glanced at her, naked and sitting on a barrel, and blinked several times. "Where are your clothes? I'm guessing you didn't come over from your kitchen with your whole back half exposed." He gestured down to the apron flung on the floor. _

_A soft chuckle escaped from her. "No. My clothes are by the door."_

_He handed her things to her, then with a cautious glance, slid between her legs once more. He pressed a long, slow kiss to her lips. "I'm sorry you lost the contract. It's just the way it goes sometimes. But if you ever feel like this again and want...want me to help, I will."_

She has three fingers pushing inside her. 

_The curve of Ben's arm as he reached back to pull his shirt over his head._

_The way he looked down to see how he ground deeply into her, just before she peaked._

_The earnestness in his eyes as he watched her come. _

_The way he took her breast in his mouth after, just long enough to soothe her and begin to stoke the barest embers of desire again, before he backed away._

She comes, arching off the bed, silent, and though the tide of sensation rocks her to her core, body still twitching around her haphazardly stacked fingers...

_...it isn't enough._

That throbbing emptiness is still there. But now it's not borne of her body. It's borne of her soul. 

As the tremors fade from her muscles, she feels the familiar numbness set in.

The same numbness that has helped her limp through all these years. 

She gets up, wipes her face with a damp cloth, changes her underwear. When she slides back into bed, she's glad she's so exhausted. Nothing, not even the gnawing in her heart, could keep her awake any longer.

\-------

Ben must have ordered the new equipment while he was in some addled state of exhaustion. He meant to have them shipped to the warehouse. But he comes home Tuesday night to five massive boxes waiting on his porch and stares at them, hoping the naked fury he channels will make them magically disappear, but they stubbornly remain.

He tips his head back to the dark sky. "Why?" He groans, but pulls his keys out again, and manages to wedge them all into his car. He resolves to drop them off in the morning.

He's normally an early riser, but after weeks of running himself into the ground, it's his first official day off, and he doesn't wake up til nine. He drags on joggers and a heavy cable-knit sweater, stops on his way out to pet the neighbor's dog through the gate, then sets off for Cowry Avenue, intent on parking in the back alley.

He doesn't make it there. Because as he's approaching the end of the street, he can see a few cars in the seven narrow parking spots out front, and the lights are on inside Irresistible.

Ben pulls over half a block down, in a beach parking lot, and through the huge windows he can just make out Rey's form, her braid hanging down over her shoulder. People are weaving in and out carrying wrapped parcels, and it takes him a moment to infer that they must be holiday orders. 

He waits. Hides from her. 

She'll have to pass by this lot on her way home. And once she does, then he'll head in.

It proves to be a long wait, long enough that he uses some of his data to download the Kindle app onto his phone and signs into his Amazon account so that he can continue reading alternate history alien invasion novel he started a month ago, and has since neglected. 

He lasts about five minutes before he starts yawning. Despite the fact that he just got up, and that he hasn't done anything yet today. 

He can remember being 22 and _full_ of energy, desperately searching for ways to burn it off each day, doing a hundred push-ups on his break from dead end jobs. He bitterly recounts how much can change in a decade. 

With no real responsibilities demanding his attention right now, he decides to indulge the drooping of his eyes, and slips off into a light, half-aware slumber.

It's the feeling of his phone buzzing in his hand that brings him back around. 

He _should_ recognize the number, after the call on Sunday, but he blearily shakes his head like a dog and swipes his thumb across the screen. "Hello, this is Ben Solo."

"Hi, honey."

Alertness jolts back into him, like a rubber band snapping against his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know that this isn't some Historical AU or Regency one shot but I saw an opportunity to use "thrice" and nothing could stop me.


	15. Better or Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for sticking with me as this story became a lot sadder, and I'm sure as a reader, more frustrating. 
> 
> I've read many stories on here that build an incredibly rich and complex web of negative traits and struggles for the main characters, but then they just...magically resolve. The issues manifest so slowly only to disappear so fast. I wanted the struggles of my own characters to feel more real, and so I felt that by necessity they had to be more prolonged. That we had to live inside them for a while before we could figure them out.
> 
> I've spent many hours of my reading life yearning for a happy ending I knew would come eventually, and I imagine some of you may be feeling that way now. Hang on, we're almost there.

"Dad said you would call." 

Leia sighs. "I can't decide if it's worse or better that he tipped you off."

Ben grits his teeth. "No comment."

They sit for a long time, the only noise the faint static of the airwaves.

"Can we talk about what happened?" She asks tentatively, and...

_He wants to be angry. _Wants to make his feelings known by hanging up in a huff.

_But she sounds so small._

His mother never sounds small, with a voice and a presence that defy her stature,. Leia Organa Solo can't help but be in control, she commands it without even trying, and then refuses to let it go. 

"What is there to talk about?" He mutters, more gently than he thought he would. "I asked you to stay away. You didn't. No matter how clear I am, you won't respect my boundaries." 

"You're my only child, how am I supposed to just ignore you for years at a time?" She rebutts, and a tiny edge of her usual authority becomes detectable.

It chips away at Ben's sympathy.

Again, he offers no comment.

"Look, I didn't call to talk about that part." 

_Just like the conversation with Han. Always getting off track, falling back into the same old patterns._

"Then what is it?" He tenses.

"It's about Rey."

All the muscle tension in the world couldn't prevent the way his stomach drops. His mother has always been uncommonly perceptive.

_What does Leia know?_

"Rey?" He repeats, shakily.

"You can continue to despise me all you want, Ben, but I don't want what happened to affect her, too. She wasn't a part of this."

_Nothing, she knows nothing._

Despite his mother's rising tone, he feels a small sense of relief.

In this regard, at least, Ben can be completely honest.

"You made her a part of this when you decided to strike up your little friendship with her." 

"Don't you dare denigrate the connection she and I were forming." All of Leia's vitriol is back, and it startles him. "You have no idea what that girl has been through. She deserves every kind word, every _little friendship_ that comes her way, and she certainly doesn't need someone like you antagonizing her because she happened to get along with me."

"Who ever said I was antagonizing her?"

"No one, but I know how you lash out when you don't have an easy person to blame."

"I do have an easy person to blame, mom, it's you."

"But until this conversation you couldn't take that out on me, could you? Which is why I bet you foisted your anger on someone else. _Her_. Treated her like she was the problem when we both know that isn't the truth."

_You can't even begin to fathom the truth, _he thinks.

"I'm an adult, mom, I know how to cope with my frustrations without constantly picking fights with people."

"Hmm." Leia grunts. "Historically, that hasn't been the case."

His mind flashes through a montage of every argument he and Rey have ever had. 

He doesn't respond, so there's another tense and quiet moment. He replays their conversation in his head. He feels another sinking in his stomach. "What has she _been through_?"

"What?"

"You said I had no idea. What she's been through. What are you talking about, mom?" 

She sighs. "I'm not sure it's my place to tell you that, Ben. Don't you think that's her right?"

Ben's stomach lurches even further. His mother has never been one to show much respect to other people's secrets.

_Why would Rey's be any different? Are they that bad?_

"If leaving her out of all this is something you feel so strongly about, I want you to give me a reason."

During the ensuing pause he can practically see his mother's normally steady gaze darting all over the room, the way it does whenever she's trying to put words together. 

"She..." Leia takes a breath, "she has no one, Ben. She never has. No family. Doesn't know who or where they are. Raised in foster care, bounced from house to house, from bad to worse." 

Ben's insides sink so much it starts to feel like pain. 

"I don't know how in the hell she made it this far. She's had to fight for every single thing she has. And she doesn't know how to stop, how to rest. Now that things are okay for her, now that she's safe, she has nowhere to put all this anger and all this energy. All she knows how to do is keep fighting. The last thing she needs is someone like you giving her a reason to."

"Wha-"

"Don't ask me anything else. I've already said more than I should have." Ben knows her tone brokers no argument.

His gut is still churning, so he doesn't ask anything else. He just makes a wordless noise acknowledging her order and slowly closes his eyes.

"She's alone, Ben. Alone in a way you, or I, can never be. No matter how badly we fuck up."

There's a heavy sadness in her voice.

Ben has trouble reconciling that with the irate woman yelling at him only moments ago, but he knows deep down that all of this: sadness, anger, loneliness, resentment, they're all shades of the same color.

Which is why he cracks his car door, lets some of the briny air in to fortify him. "I won't let this affect my treatment of Rey." 

"Good."

"We don't interact too often, so it shouldn't be hard to do."

"Really?"

He blinks. "Really what?"

"You don't interact much?" 

"Does that surprise you?"

Leia hums. "I just...The way you spoke to each other in the parking lot, that day I was there. The way you looked at each other. I got the feeling that you knew each other better than that."

His forehead is sweating. "Better than what?"

"Than two people who barely talk."

Ben bites his tongue. Leia's still perceptive.

"We have to discuss business stuff occasionally. And she did the dessert catering for Phasma's wedding, so we...talked, a little bit, while we were there."

"But that's it?"

He's holding his breath. "Yep."

"Well keep it that way."

He blows out a breath.

"Like I said, I don't think you'd have a good effect on her. Frankly, neither of you would have a good effect on each other."

_Oh, how right she is._

"Why not?"

"You're too similar."

"_Similar_?" 

"All energy, all anger. Both of you with that need to fight. She's just more careful about who she unleashes it on."

"No, no, we're nothing alike. Not at all. She's...a pushover. People-pleasing, falsely humble, scary cheerful."

"All she ever wants to do is do something for someone else well enough that they'll tell her she did good. All she ever wants to do is crowd out her pain with experiences that can make her forget it for a little while. She...she's you from ten years ago."

Ben sits, and lets that last statement hit him like a punch to the face.

"Well then I suppose I've evolved beyond that stage."

"You and me both." Leia sighs. "But you'll never get to see how I've evolved if you don't give us a chance."

Ben squeezes his eyes shut. They've come full circle. "The way to earn that chance wasn't to spy on me, mom."

"I didn't know how else to be sure you were ready. To try talking again."

"Next time just try shooting me a text." She huffs.

"Well anyways. Now that we've barreled right through all those early steps at reconnecting, there's something I want to ask you."

There's that strange element in her voice again. Nervous, chastened. Ben hates that it softens his anger.

"Hmm?"

"I'm hoping you'll come to dinner tomorrow."

"You..." he says immediately, then stops, processes for a moment, "you want me at Thanksgiving?"

"I just," Leia says, and Ben hears a rumble in the background that he recognizes as his father's voice. "It's always the time of year when we miss you the most, Benny." 

His throat instantly constricts. His eyes prickle. He can feel her words working their way in, like a virus targeting the most sensitive parts of him, and his instinct is to put his defenses up. To lash out until she backs away, until the infection of her sadness is flushed out of him.

"So when everything happened over these last few weeks, and after you spoke with your dad, I thought inviting you might be...I don't know, worth a shot, I guess."

He can just picture his dad trying to discourage her. Making up reasons why it wouldn't be the best idea. Han trying to shield his wife from Ben's rejection, which Han felt certain would come.

His dad would hide those efforts within cutting comments and by being dismissive. Because Han doesn't know how, or is otherwise unwilling, to express his fears honestly. 

_Ben had to learn that from somewhere, right?_

Ben can hear the tiniest edge of defeat in Leia's voice, as though she's already anticipating the refusal Han warned about.

Ben can't be sure if it's Leia's utterly novel defeat or a desire to spite his father. Either way, he feels something indescribable well up inside him, his heart starts to pound, and the words come out of his mouth, fast and mumbled.

"Maybe I could drop by for a little bit."

There's total silence on the other end of the line. Ben waits, but grows desperate to shatter it. "What time are you guys eating?"

"I uh," Leia says a little too loudly, as though just emerging from a trance, "honey, what time are we expecting to eat?"

"Four," Han grumbles, and Ben can hear the surprise in just that single word, too. 

"Four," Leia repeats more firmly, "but of course you can come over any time, early if you want to help with the pies like you used to, but I wouldn't expect you to do any work of course, that's not why I asked you. Or if you can't make it around four, if you have a, what are those called? A Friendsgiving, and you want to come later-"

"Mom...."

"-then of course that's fine too, we'll have leftovers around all night, and you can eat later, or not eat if you don't want to, just your company would be fine, an-"

"Mom!"

"What?" She says distractedly, and Ben blinks for a moment. She was rambling. Leia isn't exactly Han-level stoic, but she most certainly doesn't _ramble._

"I don't know what my plans are for tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay." 

"I don't know when I'll be there. I'll text you before I leave."

"Okay." 

"See you then." Before anything else can be said, he hangs up.

He breathes out, turning and tipping his forehead til it touches the window, and stares out at the gray, turbulent water crashing into the sand. His eyes slide shut and he whispers against the glass.

_"Fuck_."

\-------

Eventually, Rey leaves. Ben watches her, a speck in the distance, as she makes her way down the sidewalk, never even glancing his way. He rushes into the back alley to unpack all his equipment and head home again.

But he barely lasts fifteen minutes there. He starts pacing.

_What the hell was he thinking?_

He never should have said yes. If, IF, he were going to start talking to them again, he always expected it would start at a distant family member's wedding or christening or funeral, when they were all obligated to be. He could loiter for an hour, preoccupied by ancient aunts pinching his cheeks, and share minimal conversation with Han or Leia or, god forbid, both. 

Or maybe he could have invited them to some big event at First Order, distracted by trying to make sure everything was perfect, a million excuses chambered and ready to fire if ever he needed to flee.

But no family members have undergone any life events in the last five years, at least none to which he was invited. And he has to admit, as the distillery has grown and changed, he has never once decided to invite them to an event. 

He always thought they would build back up to something like Thanksgiving. 

Leia tried to lower the stakes, to make it clear he didn't have to come for the meal or stay long. But he knows this won't be as casual as she hopes, no matter how many concessions she gives him. Uncle Lando will be there. As will Uncle Chewie, and probably Wedge. Leia's friend Holdo and her daughter Tillie.

Practically vibrating with anxiety, he lurches into his room and tears his clothes off. Yanks on his wet suit, pulls on some water shoes, and checks the traffic between here and Maz's garage. 

He's just sliding into the driver's seat when he remembers. "_Fuck_," he spits, yanking on his hair. 

He parks halfway down the block, staring at the building for a long time. There's one light shining from upstairs, the yellowy one Ben knows is in the bathroom. 

He waits, but after fifteen minutes, his anxiety has returned in such a crush that he's starting to get heartburn, so he locks his car and creeps towards the garage. 

He uses painstaking care to open the padlock without a sound. 

Thankfully no one's messed with his shit this time, so it's easy to slide his board out without disturbing any other gear, and he sets it gently on the strip of grass at the outer edge of the sidewalk as he shuts the doors softly. 

For a second, he grips the padlock, fiercely. He lets his eyes slide shut. His forehead hits the weathered wood. 

She's _right there._

He remembers that day in the storage room, when she lost the contract, and somehow she knew he could be tasked to fuck some peace back into her. 

More than conquering any wave, more than the best first quarter profit margin he can imagine, more than anything, he wants _her_ to fuck some peace back into _him_.

He rips himself away, picking up his board and loping straight to the sand, crashing through the grass and scrub. He surveys the water: rough and choppy, the overcast sky making the water look gray and flat.

The ocean doesn't give a shit if he's mad, or scared, or lonely, or the happiest man alive. It chews everyone up the same, demands the same level of focus from anyone. Ben takes a modicum of comfort knowing he could be any other man, a better or worse one, and the water, at least, would treat him the same.

\-------

When she wakes up Thursday morning, it's to gray, dim light coming through her long row of windows. She knows it'll be a blustery day.

That same hollow feeling from last night still echoes inside her. 

Before it can drag her under, she gets a text from Poe.

_Hope you don't mind I grabbed a few of these for my little cousins!_

He's got a handful of the Irresistible stickers and friendship bracelets they made as souvenirs for their Finn's baking classes. 

_Of course not! Have a great trip :)_ she sends back, and opens up her conversation with Rose, but hesitates.

Rose and her parents went upstate to celebrate the holiday with her dad's family. Paige was apparently queen of Thanksgiving, and ever since she passed away, it's been a somber day her family has struggled to enjoy again.

Rey decides Rose is best left alone, and she'll check in tomorrow.

Poe is leaving for Guatemala, taking a little time off to visit family he hasn't seen since he was a child. 

Phasma and Hux are throwing a huge dinner at Hux's dad's hospice. He has weeks left, at best.

Finn scheduled his wisdom teeth surgery with a really good periodontist in Chandrila, so he's staying in an AirBnB for several days to allow the swelling to go down and the Vicodin to wear off before he needs to drive back.

Ben is-

_No._

She tries to force her thoughts away from him, and back onto her other friends, but this time, it's no use.

Because this is one day where thinking of her friends makes Rey feel just as awful as thinking of him. 

For the first time in her adult life, Rey is alone on Thanksgiving.

In the past something had always worked out: a friend from her numerous odd jobs who offered her at seat at their table in exchange for a ride out to the suburbs. A Friendsgiving was thrown by someone in the Food Truck circuit. One year she and Finn drove to Vegas and busted some of their savings on an insane buffet dinner at one of the casinos. 

She knows, _she knows_.

Finn is having surgery for Christ's sake, and Rose isn't likely to be enjoying her day much either. Rey has no reason to be so upset.

But lying alone in her bed, while other people run 5Ks with babies in strollers, and fight over the best way to make sweet potatoes, and deep fry a turkey on their front lawn, perhaps causing a minor fire they'll all laugh over next year...she doesn't have that. 

The first two tears stream out silently, without her consent. 

This isn't the first time she's had to beat back the tide of her own dragging loneliness.

_But there's always been something to soothe it._

An evening spent with friends.

The never-ending joys and responsibilities of her business.

A man, and the way they kissed. And the dark, ugly things his touch could wordlessly draw out of her.

She has no family. That much has always been true.

But today, she has nothing. 

_The business is closed._

_Her friends are gone. _

_Ben is gone. _

And Rey is left unmoored.

She cries softly in bed for a moment longer.

And with nothing to stop her, she scrambles up.

She sits down on the couch, Bebe watching her from a ceiling beam, and lifts the cushion with shaky hands. Her tears drip down onto her bare knees, and she thrusts her fingers into the linty, gritty darkness under the cushion, seeking it out. 

There is the tiny pink velvet pouch. Inside, a blue bracelet. Big clunky plastic beads strung onto a yellowing piece of elastic, a clumsy knot holding it all together. The kind a child would make at summer camp or an after-school program.

\-------

_She would wear it whenever Rey requested, and Rey would stare up at it on her delicate wrist, while they held hands and walked through the supermarket, or to the post office, or to the house where Rey would watch as she bought little white pills. _

_But Rey had measured and made the bracelet on her own wrist. So after an hour or so, her mother would slide it gingerly off, red indentations from where the overstretched string had pressed the beads into her skin. "Here, honey, it's your turn," she would say, pushing it onto Rey's own arm, where it sat comfortably, the right size. _

_She'd done that on the last day, as they wandered through Macy's. She had shown up mid-morning, pulled Rey out of school for no reason, said they were going to spend the day together. Rey remembers pretending to fall off the slick plastic stool at McDonald's as they ate a McFlurry, a ham-fisted grip on the huge, weird plastic spoon. Her mother had laughed, genuinely and truly, every time she faked sliding to the floor, eyes wide with comical terror._

_Then they went to Macy's. Wandered around, testing the mattresses and making up stories about where they would wear the gowns hanging from the headless plastic mannequins. It was then that she winced, and took off the bracelet, "Your turn, honey."_

_Rey dutifully slipped it onto her own wrist, staring at the way the overhead lights glinted through the faceted sides of each bead._

_When she looked up from her wrist, she was alone._

_She wandered around for about an hour, sure her mother was around every corner or behind the next rack. _

_But finally, she walked up to a shopkeeper about her teacher's age, late sixties, with kind eyes and a neat blonde bob. _

_"Uh, hi. I can't find my mom." The woman glanced down, face creasing in concern, and spoke gently to her. She took her into a back hall with a security guard, who offered her a paper cup of orange juice and played I Spy with her until everything in the barren room had been spotted._

_Still she was alone. Eventually, the security guard's face creased in concern, too, as they drew closer to the end of his shift. _

_\-------_

She shakes the pink velvet bag, hard, and the only other item falls out.

In the photo she stands on a curb, one hand leaned against a fire hydrant, the other held out, thumb up in a hitchhiker's pose. She has a wide grin missing several teeth, and her hair is falling out of three limp buns. 

Two long shadows fill the rest of the frame, throwing half of her into darkness. Glinting in a slice of sunlight on her outstretched arm is the blue bracelet. 

She lets out one tiny, soft wail, pushes the bracelet onto her now much bigger wrist, and wobbles to her feet, practically unseeing through her tears, and reaches for her keys.

\--------

Ben's barely out of bed, still drinking his first cup of coffee and staring out the window, when his phone buzzes.

_Hi honey. Can you bring some of that maple whiskey? Lando says you sent him a case back when you were first developing it and he's dying for more. He's got Han and Wedge hankering for some now too._

Without waiting for a response from him, he sees the three dots appear again, and then she sends a curt _Thanks!_

Ben scoffs. He accepts one invitation and it takes her all of twelve hours to go full Leia on him again.

Nonetheless...he's going to bring the whiskey.

He pokes around in the garage, and naturally, he has some of every other spirit they carry, but not that one. 

So he resolves to leave half an hour early. 

But he still takes his time getting ready. He's already slept in: six hours of fighting the pounding surf will do that to you. His toes were blue and his lips numb by the time he exited the water, when it got dark enough out that he no longer felt safe.

He came home, stripped out of his wet suit, and crashed face-first into his bed.

It seems to have worked. Only the vapors of yesterday's consuming anxiety linger.

The vapors, he can handle. His toes are still a little tender from the first, barest edge of cold exposure, and the fine grit of sand scrapes in his armpits and between his fingers, so he takes his coffee into the bathroom and fills the tub.

When he sinks in, his knees protrude obnoxiously above the water, and he's so curled up his heels are nearly touching his ass. But he's warm, and his bathroom is deep enough into the little house that the room is mostly dark, so he takes a few long moments to gather himself, listening to the echo of his own breaths on the tiled walls, then washes the sand from his skin and rinses his hair, which had gone wild from the saltwater. 

He selects a navy blue sweater and dark jeans, and grabs his umbrella when he notices a spatter of rain outside.

He works to stay calm during the drive to the distillery. He thinks of Chewie, who will tell the same six mildly offensive jokes he tells at every gathering. He thinks of Amilyn forcing everyone to say something they're thankful for, and when Han says Coors Light, she will shoot him a death glare to rival Leia's. Han will acquiesce, and come up with some gruff but serious answer.

He focuses on those. The certainties, the predictable things, so that he doesn't have to dwell on how much about this day remains unknown.

He swings into the back alley, parks, and unlocks the rear door. Thankfully he doesn't spend long hunting for the maple whiskey in the storeroom, and grabs a bottle.

Thinking better of it, he sets it back down and hoists the whole case.

After it's buckled into the passenger seat like the precious cargo it is, he drifts back in. Just to do one last check. No one will be here for the next four days, and he feels like he's leaving his child home alone for the first time.

_You have my phone number, right? Don't be afraid to call, about anything. I won't be gone long, I promise. _Except his distillery can't call him if anything goes wrong.

The storage room and the kitchen are quiet and still. He drifts forward, finds the bar and the tasting room equally unchanged, and breathes out.

_When he turns back towards the door, he's going to get in that car, and drive, and just like that, he's going to see his parents. _

He shakes his head at himself. "What the hell are you doing, Ben?"

A rattle sounds from nearby. His head cocks towards the noise. After a long moment he hears more rustling, and a few low thunks. 

He creeps silently to the alley and peers out. 

The door to Irresistible is propped open.

Rey wouldn't do that on any normal day, let alone when it's raining. The sight of it makes Ben's stomach twinge with confusion. Everyone's gone for Thanksgiving. 

_Who's inside?_

_Is someone stealing something? _

Ben's aware he should probably have some sort of weapon, but instead he just creeps, gingerly, into the open door. He hears more rustling, and localizes it to Rey's supply closet, where she keeps the holiday stuff, the extra baking tools....and the safe. 

All the pies and half-gallons he watched her sell yesterday. That safe could easily be full of thousands of dollars.

He's just about to shout at the intruder, try to lure them out, when he hears it.

A sob. A hard, _wracking_ sob, followed by a wet sniffle, and several smaller noises that sound wrenched fitfully from their host. 

In his bafflement he says nothing, does nothing.

Rey emerges from the closet doorway.

Her face is red, splotchy, covered in snot and tears, and she screams a little when she sees him, drops the small cardboard box she was carrying, and scuttles back into the closet. 

"Rey?"

Ben doesn't know what to do, or what to say. 

He approaches the door, his shoes squeaking on the tile, but she calls out in a thick voice, "No, don't." He freezes.

"I...what?" He calls out to her, trying to tread softer, to get closer without her noticing, but the _fucking_ rain and the _fucking_ tile, he can't take a single quiet step. He can hear her sobs carry on, quieter.

"Go away, Ben." She calls out weakly.

All he knows is that suddenly he's shaking his head, and then he remembers she can't see him, so he opens his mouth.

"No." 

There's a brief, silent pause, then Rey breaks into sobs afresh.

She's begged him lots of times. For...things.

But never like this. 

"Please just go, just go, please, I don't want you here, I don't need you to-"

"What's going on, Rey?" He insists, curling his toes in his shoes to fight the urge to walk to her doorway. 

"You need to leave, I didn't think I would see anyone here, and I don't-" She's crying so hard she starts to cough.

"I'm not leaving you like this," he says immediately.

"I don't want you here." She tries to insist, and Ben can hear her trying to force some anger in his voice, to make it sting and scare him off.

_He sees right through it._

"You need me here." He hesitates, backpedals. "Maybe not me, but someone. And I'm the one here."

The standoff continues in silence. He can still hear the wet sounds as she sniffles, the gurgles as she cries. He tries to wait her out, but eventually, he caves. 

He approaches the door.

And finds her beyond the pile of cardboard boxes, still strewn across the floor. She's curled in the corner with her knees to her chest. She's wearing athletic shorts and a hoodie zipped up to her throat, and even from here, Ben can see the goosebumps on her legs. He can see her trying to tamp down her relentless sobs, but it's like the tide: a wave can only swell so big before it must break. And she keeps breaking, breath shuddering out of her, more tears falling. 

He takes a long, slow breath, staring her down and then, before he can second guess himself, starts towards her.

She doesn't shy away from him. Doesn't cower. Ben pulls her into his lap, and her arms wrap around his back like a vice.

"I'm not leaving you alone."


	16. The Strangeness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot happening in this here chapter, folks.

Rey stares at him for a long time, eyes big, and wet, and so red. Slowly her lip trembles and her sobs begin anew, so she hides her face in his shoulder. Ben waits a long, long time for her to calm the smallest fraction, then whispers, "Why are you here?"

She sniffs hard. "It's time to set up the winter decorations in the parlor, it goes along with the new flavors we-"

"Your winter holiday events don't start for another week," Ben interrupts knowingly, and she falls silent. He can't see her face, only the top of her head, but presses on. "It's Thanksgiving, Rey. Why. Are you here?"

Her fist curls in his shirt, and she takes several sips of breath before she finally says it.

"Because I'm alone." 

His brow knits.

_What?_

She's constantly surrounded by people. Rose, Finn, that Poe guy from the wedding. Hell, even some of his friends have also become hers now. 

His own fucking mother started a friendship with her. 

Not to mention the innumerable other people Ben's sure he doesn't know about: family, and neighbors, and whomever she knew back in New Mexico. 

"Finn? Rose? Jessika?"

"Everyone is gone. Off doing things with their families?" Her voice wobbles.

Ben blinks.

"Right, then why aren't you off doing things with your family?"

"I told you, I'm alone."

"Alone how? In California?" 

Finally she leans back, looking up at him. Her irises look so green, against the angry red that surrounds them, and she wipes her nose with her sleeve as she takes in his confused stare.

"No." Her eyes dart around his face a moment longer. "My mother left me in a Macy's when I was four and walked away. So, I got put into the system. And none of the foster homes where I lived were ever any good." 

He feels dread seep in.

"What?" The word slips out unbidden.

"I am_ alone,_ Ben." She refrains, and the tears well up again. He pulls her forward, his lips against the crown of her head, hiding her face against his throat. 

His mind races a thousand miles a minute. His stomach churns. He can't believe he forgot what his mother said. 

_She has no one, Ben._

In the chaos of finding her here, he completely forgot what he already knew. 

But this, knowing exactly how and why she no longer has a family, makes it ten times worse. He thinks of a little girl, sable hair in braids, eyes wide as saucers as she waits by the entrance to a massive department store, scanning the face of every woman who passes.

_How long was she there? How long before she realized her mother wasn't coming back?_

_How long before she accepted it?_

_Every moment he's watched her through the glass of their shared window, cracking jokes, eyes always scanning the room, making sure everyone is smiling, subtly digging for praise. Her need for everything to be perfect. Her bouts of melancholy. The fact that she doesn't know how to feed herself properly._

_The way she would cling to him in bed. The way she sought escape in all-consuming, mindless pleasure._

Suddenly all of it makes sense. 

And suddenly Ben feels a wall of rage, so potent he swears his vision clouds, that someone so earnestly good became so at the expense of such a horrible childhood.

He hauls her up and sets her on her feet, against her half-baked protests, and prods her forward with a hand on her lower back. "Come on."

She lets out a bewildered sound but complies, and as they emerge into the kitchen, she reaches for the hem of her sleeve, pulling it over her hand to wipe her nose once more.

She inadvertently pinches a blue plastic bracelet around her wrist, and when she tugs on her hoodie, it proves too much for what looks like aging elastic. It snaps, and the beads spill from her sleeve, scattering across the tile.

She doubles over, the tears taking hold once again, then sinks to her knees.

Ben feels nearly out of control, that same haze of anger mixing with sadness, and frustration, and yet more anger that he doesn't know what to do, or say, or be, in order to make this better for her. He stoops over her, placing both hands spread wide on her back, and murmurs, asking her to come get in the car. 

While she gathers herself he walks around her, retrieving every bead, thankful for his long arms as he reaches underneath a prep table to snatch the last one. He slips them into his pocket while she watches, and when he reaches out a hand, she hesitates for a long moment, then takes it.

When she's standing again, Ben notices a white crinkled corner sticking out of her pocket. He stares at it, and she reaches with a shaking hand. She proffers it wordlessly.

Ben sees two long shadows across the figure of a goofy, smiling girl. Her hair is shorter than how he imagined it. Her freckles are the same.

"This is them?" He asks rhetorically, but Rey still nods. 

Ben drinks it in for a long moment, thinks of all the photos he used to have just like this. A moment frozen in time, capturing a feeling that no longer exists. That will never exist again, yet still holds him prisoner. 

"Come on," he pulls her into the back alley, where the rain spatter has reduced to a few intermittent drops, the sky still gray and woolen. 

He lets go of her hand near the recycling bins and she drifts to a stop. Without looking back he goes to his car and rummages in the center console. 

It's been three years since he quit his pack-a-day, but he knows what he needs must still be in here somewhere.

His fist closes around the smooth plastic of the lighter and he clenches his jaw in triumph.

Her eyes follow him as he comes back to her. He holds out the photo in a cupped palm, allowing her one more moment. He sees the gathering of yet more fresh tears.

Then, he throws it to the ground, flicking the lighter with practiced ease, and inflames the corner of the glossy square. The edge smolders and curls slowly. Rey gasps, but makes no move to extinguish it. Some ash falls to the pavement.

"Let the past die," he whispers, his mouth near her ear.

The dampness in the air deadens the sparks, leaving the center of the photo unscathed, tendrils of smoke rising from its edges. It's then that Ben peers more carefully, noticing the blue bracelet on little Rey's arm.

The same one that just broke. 

He goes on. "Kill it, if you have to." Rey looks at him, with a gaze so sorrowful he wants desperately to turn away, but he forces himself to return it. 

She reaches out for the lighter, and leans down.

She reignites the photo.

Soon, the ash is all that's left.

She walks over, flips the lights, and kicks out the rubber stopper holding Irresistible's door open. As she passes him she grabs his hand and drags him to the car. More tears fall, but these are calmer, the redness finally starting to fade from her face. 

They're silent as he turns the key and pulls out of the alley. 

They're silent as they pull out onto Cowry Avenue, as they drive parallel to the beach.

Then suddenly Rey nearly yells, "Stop the car."

Ben screeches to a halt, the car lurching, and Rey is staring hard out the windshield, as though there is more to see besides the bluster in the sky and the empty road. 

She reaches over to his jeans pocket and shoves her hand in, grasping for every last bead to be found there. 

She launches herself out of the car, sprinting across the sand, and right as she reaches the water's edge, she opens her fist and throws its contents out into the churning, inscrutable waves.

Ben can see her chest rising and falling hard, her arms hung limply at her sides. He waits a long moment but she doesn't move, not even a millimeter, so he opens his door, ignoring the pinging coming from his dashboard because his lights are still on, and follows her down the sand.

When he reaches her, her eyes flit across the water, as though she could track the motion of each bead she flung there. Ben knows the pounding surf will pulverize the beads into dust, in a matter of days.

He looks over at her. She takes her time, but finally she looks back.

"You're not alone."

She stares at him for a long time. Another one of those penetrating gazes, that makes his skin burn and his heart pound. She takes a step closer to him, still holding his gaze.

"Neither are you."

He swallows hard at the thought that she can sense the same isolation in him, even though he's not the one whose secrets have been laid bare.

Yet as the moment dwells on, he finds _being seen_ doesn't scare him. Doesn't unsettle him.

Perhaps it's because he's finally seen her, too.

So instead he just nods minutely, and they walk back to the car. 

When they pull up in front of her apartment, her hand lingers on the door handle for a long moment. "Did you want to come up for a min-"

In that split second, Ben makes a decision.

"Go get changed."

Her head turns sharply to look at him. "What?"

"Go, clean yourself up. Find whatever your version of _this_ is," he gestures to his outfit. "Then come get in the car. You're not gonna spend today by yourself."

"Where are you-"

"To my parents'." 

"You're gonna see them today?" She's astonished. He wonders for a moment, what Leia's told her about him.

He nods.

"They both called recently." His hands clench the steering wheel. Seeing her today has emboldened his own sense of honesty. "I was in kind of bad place. Wasn't strong enough to say no."

"Saying yes wasn't..._bad,_" she says, with absolute solemnity.

He looks over into those hazel eyes, and they lend him some speck of peace about saying yes. And about inviting her along.

"Be back soon," she whispers, and exits the car. He sits in park for a moment, shaking his leg up and down, making his numerous keys jingle as they bump his thigh, but everything in the last hour, in the last _four days_ is welling up inside him. He can feel himself getting heartburn again. So he pulls the keys from the ignition and takes a deep lungful of the cold air once he's outside.

He sits on her stairs, legs outstretched, and tips his head back to stare at the clouds racing overhead, endless and yet all looking the same. It's how his mind feels. 

He hears a muffled mewl and looks over to see Bebe perched on the window sill, one paw pressed to the glass. The tiniest smile graces his face. He reaches to turn Rey's doorknob, cracking it just enough to let Bebe dart out and climb immediately into his lap, bouncing up to rub her head against the underside of his chin. 

"Hey there, pretty girl," he mumbles to her. Stroking her fur, twinkling his fingers to get her to jump and bat at them, are just enough to drag him outside of his own head a little. 

After a few moments, he cracks the door again, and Bebe scurries back in. Not thirty seconds later, the hinges squeal as the door opens a third time, wider. Ben slowly raises his eyes.

Rey is there, clad in black velvet leggings and a ruffled burgundy blouse. She's wearing those same shiny oxfords from Phasma's wedding, and half her hair is braided back. The tiniest trace of redness still lingers in her eyes, but on the whole she looks all right. 

What's more: she looks shy, as he evaluates her. "You look nice."

She shrugs, bringing one shoulder up to her ear, and Ben understands. 

_Desperate for praise, but then never sure how to respond when it comes. _

They don't speak much on the drive over, but the energy floating through the car is one of hard-won calm.

Taking side streets to avoid the highway, they make it to Coruscant Proper in just under forty minutes. Ben slows as he approaches his parents' huge Craftsman, painted a soft green with dark purple trim. The driveway is already clogged with cars. There's a pile of raked leaves on the lawn, and the swing still hangs from the sycamore, the one Ben fell from, breaking his wrist, twenty interminable years ago.

It's the first time Ben's seen this house since he was twenty.

Rey takes a tremulous breath. "I forgot to bring something. An appetizer, or flowers, or...whatever."

Ben sighs, seeing silhouettes dip in and out of view through the drawn gauzy curtains, and shrugs the way Rey did, with one shoulder. "Believe me, there will be more than enough of everything already here."

He lifts the case of whiskey from the back seat, leading Rey under the brick carport all the way to the kitchen door. He can already see the island inside, laden with dirty bowls and half-used ingredients. 

His mother may be a brilliant chef, but she's not exactly neat about it.

He steels himself, opens the door without hesitation, and leads her inside. The room is sweltering hot. Both the upper and lower ovens are on, three burners have some sort of pot bubbling atop them, and the surface fan is loudly sucking away the accumulating steam. The fridge is so stuffed it appears they're using a bungee cord to keep it shut. 

He suddenly feels the need to say everything he probably should have mentioned five minutes ago.

"A lot of my parents' friends will probably be here too, but everyone's really friendly, so if anything I think it'll he-"

His mother's voice drifts in from far away. "Ben? That you?"

"Hi mom, sorry I'm late, I ju-"

"No, no worries," she rushes to say, her voice gradually growing louder as she draws closer. "I had some issues with the dry brine on the turkey, so everything is about an hour behind anyway, and we just put out the appe-"

She turns the corner, and her voice stops short. She gapes, blinking at the scene in her kitchen. 

"Um, hi." Rey greets anxiously, hand twisting in the hem of her shirt.

"Rey?" Leia breathes.

_Shit,_ Ben thinks suddenly.

"Thanks for um, agreeing to let me be here." Rey offers, and she's clearly waiting for some sort of affirmation from Leia, a nod or a few warm words, but instead all she gets is a blank, dark stare. Rey's eyes slide over to Ben.

"Did you..." Rey begins. 

_Shitting goddamn fucking shit._

"...did you forget to tell her I was coming?"

Ben's unable to control the way he immediately goes defensive. "I mean, to be fair it's not like I had a lot of chances."

"You had that whole time I was in the shower!" Rey insists in a low whisper, but Leia's practically canine hearing is fully engaged.

"_In the shower?_" She parrots, eyes widening.

"I was too nervous at the prospect of even being here to think about anything else." He offers lamely.

"Nervous?" Leia repeats again.

"Well if you're _that_ nervous to be here, why did you even bother inviting me?"

"You know why," He bites out sharply, casting Rey a long, hard look. She sighs, but surrenders his point with a nod.

A lower, rough voice asks, "So wait, why didn't you call us?"

There's Han, standing half behind Leia, hands on his hips. 

_Fucking godddamn stupid shit._

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I live here, kid." Han points out drolly.

"No, in this conversation," Ben insists.

"I heard what sounded like very confused voices and figured I should investigate."

"Well thank god we have Sherlock fucking Holmes here with us, everyone!" Ben exclaims, hand thrown grandly out into the air. 

\-------

Rey wants to crawl into a hole, to flee from the blatant hostility and anxiety between the three of them. It reminds her of watching awkward scenes in movies, when she mutes the audio and hums to herself to get through the painful embarrassment she's forced to witness.

She can't hum to herself until this is over. She can't mute this conversation. So instead, she just tries to defuse it.

"Before we left, he could have called. He was waiting outside while I showered." Rey attempts to explain.

Ben and his mother speak at the same time.

"You do not need to provide her with any more details." "_Waiting outside the shower?_"

"No. I mean, yes. He waiting in my apartment." Rey explains, completely ignoring Ben's veiled plea.

_Lord, please kill her. Strike her dead._

"I didn't wait in your apartment, I waited on the stairs." Ben clarifies.

"You didn't come in?"

"No."

"But you had cat hair on your sweater when I came and found you." Her eyes widen. "Did you let Bebe outside?"

"For a few minutes, yeah."

"Bebe never goes outside. She's afraid."

"Well," Ben says, with a supercilious smile, "she came outside for me. After all, I am her favorite."

"You're not her favorite! She ju-"

"So the stairs aren't _in_ the apartment?" Han asks, eyes far away, as though he's trying to picture the scene.

"No, it's a second floor unit, and the stairs to my door are outside."

"Huh. That must really blow when it's raining and you have stuff to carry." Han muses, and Leia mutters a sound of agreement. 

"Yeah, that's true actually." Rey agrees.

"So you were waiting on the stairs, for her to get out of the shower, for reasons that still have not been determined, and..._why are we discussing all this_?" Leia summarizes.

Everyone falls silent, only the whir of the appliances punctuating the room.

The four of them stand there until Rey has the gumption to break it.

"I'll just...keep this simple. Leia, may I stay for Thanksgiving dinner?" She glances at Han. "No offense that I'm asking her and not both of you, but-"

"None taken," Han says sincerely, "This is a tight ship and I am most definitely not the captain."

"Rey," Leia says, her voice gone softer, "of course it is, dear."

Rey and Ben let out a tandem sigh of relief.

"But-" his mother continues, and Ben clenches his jaw, "I have to ask. Ben...brought you? I didn't exactly get the impression at our last meeting that you were two people who would willingly share, well, anything. Let alone Thanksgiving."

Ben abdicates providing any explanation. He stays silent, keeps his nervous, weary eyes on Rey, and waits.

She sighs, exasperated, and answers Leia's expectant gaze with, "It's a long story. Long and complicated."

"And you don't feel like telling it." A gruff voice asks. _Oh right, Han is still here._

"I do not feel like telling it." Rey reaffirms.

\-------

"In that case, settle this for us," Han requests, and seemingly from nowhere, he conjures and lifts a five pound bag of potatoes. "Mashed potatoes: skin on, or skin off?"

"Oh, skin on," Rey says like it's obvious.

In the same second Ben mutters, "Skin off."

She turns fully to look at him. "Skin off? I swear to god sometimes it's like you're _trying_ to troll me."

"It ruins the texture of the mash. It can't be smooth with little wrinkled islands of potato skin floating around."

"Mashed potatoes aren't meant to be velvety smooth. And besides, the skin is where all the vitamins are."

Ben narrows his eyes at her. "You're one of those people who likes lumps in your mashed potatoes too, aren't you?" 

"Compromise!" Oh right, his dad is_ still_ here. "Compromise." 

"I'll peel just a few potatoes and set them aside for you, that way you can have your own skinless bowl. Okay?" Leia offers, and Ben stares at her.

Five years ago, it would have been _suck it up, get over it._ His mother probably would have gone ahead and added extra skins just to try and convince him they were good and he was wrong. 

But not now. Now he stares at the lingering hopefulness in her gaze and nods silently.

"What can I do to help?" Rey asks, gesturing around the room.

And _finally,_ the conversation is over.

There are several bouquets of autumnal flowers shoved onto one corner of the counter top, so according to his mother's guidance Ben pulls several vases off a high shelf then leaves Rey to trim the stems and add water. When she asks where to put them, Leia gives a vague wave of her hand. "Oh you know, just wherever." 

Rey doesn't seem comfortable with that lack of direction, but says nothing. Ben drifts around the kitchen, throwing away bits of tin foil and empty spice shakers and crumpled produce bags from a dozen different vegetables. He stacks dirty bowls in the sink and prioritizes washing the beater for the KitchenAid, certain his mother will need it again some time today.

Communication is kept to a minimum: his mom asking him to rinse a certain wooden spoon, Rey asking if they'd like the little packet of plant food added to the water. The mood settles, and amidst the bustle, things start to feel almost normal.

Soon enough though, Rey has six vases ready on the counter, and when Ben turns away from the sink, she looks askance at him. 

He picks up the two heaviest vases and gestures for her to grab two more, then he leads her through the doorway into the dining room. 

He chooses a short, squat display of orange and yellow roses for the table, then continues on through the entryway and past the stairs, to the tiny library with the window seat. He pulls the smallest vase from Rey's hands and sets it on the empty ledge at the center of the shelves.

He shoves his remaining vase into Rey's hands and jogs back to the kitchen to get the remaining two. When he returns she's still there, eyes drifting over the spines of all the books, head tilted.

The strangeness of it hits him all at once. 

He's in his parents house. He's assisting with this and that, the way he did for every holiday, back when he was thirteen. His mom is a category 4 cooking storm, his dad is dipping in and out to "help" but mostly to grab more beers, and no one even seems aware of the fact that the last time he walked out of this house, it was with the very real expectation that he would never return. Never even speak to them again, probably. 

But here he is.

And_ Rey_ is here. Somehow taking up space and talking to his mother without making it any more weird. 

"Ready for more?" He asks her from the doorway, and she turns a little too suddenly. A few drops of water splash out of one vase and fall to the floorboards. An unexpected bubble of laughter hums in his throat and she gives him a tiny smile in return.

He leads her out and up the stairs. They put one arrangement on the sill of the bay window in parents' room, two on the dressers in the guest rooms, and then Ben pauses, staring at the only remaining door at the other end of the hall. 

\-------

"Your old room?" Rey says to the back of his head, and watches as he nods. She just waits, silent, watching the light shift across his shirt as he inhales and exhales. "If you don't want me in there, I can go back downstairs."

"No, no it's not that," he says, and turns to her, one hand on the banister and the other on the opposing wall. "I just...I'm thinking about how long it's been since _I_ was in there." 

Rey waits. "Nine years," he mutters finally, and her eyes widen. He stares at her hard for a moment, eyes darting over all the details of her face, "Let's go."

Rey follows close behind as he approaches the door. It swings open on silent hinges, and it's...more or less what Rey expected. The sheets are a red and black plaid flannel, with a gray quilt. Posters for a few mid-2000s alternative bands still grace the walls. Over the desk there's a framed photo of Ben, bent over a tray of tiny plates upon which he's arranging vegetables with a pair of chopsticks. He's wearing a starched white coat and his hair is held back in a bandanna. His face is less lined and his body a little less filled out. If Rey had to guess, she'd say he's probably about-

"Wait, how old are you?" she asks him suddenly.

He stops running his fingers across a row of well-worn paperbacks. "Twenty-nine." 

"Hmm." Rey hums. "I'm twenty-five." She adds offhandedly.

"You seem older." He finally selects a book from the dresser, and flips it open.

She shrugs with one shoulder again. "My life..." she trails off.

"It forced you to be that way." He finishes, and she nods, stepping away from the desk and turning to look at him. He looks past her, still staring at the photo. "I was training to be a chef, with my uncle, before First Order. Before everything."

"Why'd you switch? To spirits?" She looks up at him, with his faraway eyes.

"It's complicated." It's so soft he's almost unintelligible, and Rey takes that for what it is: a thinly veiled warning not to press him. Perhaps because she doesn't, he volunteers a few more details.

"My first and only real restaurant job was at Imperator. One of Snoke's places. He'd been recruiting me for months, while I was still training." 

"And you thought working for him would be better than with your uncle?" Rey mutters incredulously. 

"I thought anything would be better than working for my uncle." Ben states baldly.

Rey blinks for a moment. She can't probe for more details, but the lack of context is also getting in the way of her empathy.

He has a family. A family that loves him, that wanted to help guide him to who he might become. She might not know the details, but she knows at some point, he made the decision to turn his back on them

That's something she doesn't think she could ever understand. 

She doesn't get her chance to glean more about his motives, though, because someone sounding gruff and unfamiliar calls up the stairs, "Ben Solo? You been in this house twenty minutes and failed to come to say hello?" 

A small smile splits Ben's formerly somber expression, and he calls back, "Be down in a second, Uncle Chewie."

"_Chewie?_"

"Yep, no idea where the nickname came from. He and my dad refuse to tell me." 

Rey snorts, and follows Ben out. He stops in the hall and reaches past her to shut the door behind her, then she watches as he descends the stairs. She hears the slaps on the back that bookend a jovial hug. 

She hovers uncertainly on the landing halfway down the stairs and Ben turns to look up at her, drawing Chewie's gaze to her as well. 

She sees Ben's throat bob. "Uncle Chewie, this is Rey. She owns the ice cream place next door to my distillery."

"Oh, right!" Chewie says, the brightness in his face and his huge smile belying the rough pitch of his voice. "Leia mentioned it. She said you guys make pretty great stuff."

His hand utterly eclipses hers as they shake. His palm is roughened with calluses, and it's even bigger than Ben's. He's taller, too. 

"I think Leia's a little biased," Rey jokes, "she'd always come to eat her feelings when she'd had a hard day, and everything tastes good when you're emotional."

Chewie's head tilts. "I wouldn't sell yourself so short. In my experience, she's got pretty high standards. Doesn't give praise hardly ever."

Ben's eye twitches, and she sees it in her periphery.

"Well then let's hope she likes my new winter flavors as much as she did the ones for this past season."

"Nothing can rival that lavender lemon!" Leia yells from the dining room, and it startles a laugh out of Rey.

"Is that a challenge, old lady?" Rey yells back. It feels like slipping back into one of their joking, mocking conversations at the parlor. 

She receives no reply, and she turns back to Chewie. Ben's behind him, leaning against the doorway. He's staring at her with an odd, faraway look in his eyes. She somehow feels it has everything and nothing to do with her.

He turns and disappears around the corner, into the living room Rey hasn't yet seen, and Chewie ushers her in offering to make introductions. She meets Holdo, a friend of Leia's. Holdo mentions that her daughter, who is Rey's age, should be arriving soon. And Wedge and Snap, two old military friends of Han's. Ben also uses "uncle," for a guy named Lando, who smiles warmly and tells Rey about his own father working in an ice cream parlor when he was a child.

Despite what Rey admits is universal politeness, it quickly becomes clear that Chewie is the best of the bunch. 

Everyone else fixes Ben with sidelong, semi-shocked glances. They offer stilted greetings to him, and never get beyond bland small talk. Holdo asks half-baked questions about his business. Snap inquires after Hux and Phasma, who he seems to know somehow.

None of the conversation feels genuine. Even Lando eyes Ben with a wariness that makes Rey want to squirm in her seat.

She's not the only one feeling it. Ben's perched on the edge of a La-Z-Boy like it's a hard wooden desk chair, posture erect, seeming ready to get up and run any second. He endures questions respectfully, offers brief and clinical answers. He asks surface-level queries in return. _How's your family? Decide when you're gonna retire yet? Been on any fun trips lately?_

They all nibble on fancy cheese, slices of roasted figs and crusty French bread from a huge platter on the coffee table. There's a football game playing, and no one seems very interested, but Ben keeps his eyes on the screen as soon as the questions die down, and everyone returns to more individual conversations. 

Unsurprisingly they settle back into conversation with Chewie. He talks about meeting Han during the war, about his decision to move out to California from Wyoming after. "I needed to be around people with whom I had shared my worst and best experiences," he says bluntly, and Rey nods, tells him she did the same thing with Finn. 

Ben offers occasional grunted comments, but mostly keeps watching TV. When Chewie pulls away to assemble himself some more appetizers, Rey nudges Ben's shoe with her sock-clad foot. She doesn't ask him anything, just stares and waits.

When he finally returns her gaze, he mutters, "Should go and see if my mom needs any help." When he makes to stand, Rey reaches out and pushes on his shoulder, returning him to his perch.

"Would you rather be in there alone with her and your dad, or in here?" She mutters softly. Ben clenches his jaw, looking up at the wall over her head, and remains silent. "I'll go help."

As she exits the room, she sees Chewie lean over to ask Ben something else, and she breathes out a sigh, suddenly awash with relief at his presence. At his effort.

_There is so much she doesn't know._

So much context she's missing. But she _can_ determine that these people never expected to see Ben here, and she'd wager some also don't _want_ him here.

But she can't dwell on why. As soon as she appears through the swinging door into the kitchen, Leia mutters, "There you are," and gives her about a million things to do.

At one point, though, Leia points to a pile of ingredients on the counter and asks Rey to make the Bechamel that needs to be poured over top the scalloped potatoes. Rey opens her mouth to say she can't, but Leia's turkey timer screeches into the sweltering room, and simultaneously her phone chimes, so now she's got it wedged between her shoulder and her ear as she holds the door open and bastes the bird inside. 

Han is in the driveway filling a cooler with ice to chill another round of drinks, and Rey's inferred from spending the last hour in here that the man knows even less about cooking than she does.

Rey's out of data on her phone, and what's more, she thinks of the gaze Leia would level at her if she caught Rey following an Epicurious page when she just made at least eight dishes from scratch without so much glancing at a recipe. 

Rey eyes that haphazard crew of milk and flour and cheese staring back at her, and pushes through the swinging door again.

Ben's exactly where she left him, pinned to the edge of that overstuffed chair, but now there are only two minutes left in the fourth quarter of that football game, so everyone is paying marginally more attention, and the strange tension in the room has eased somewhat.

"Ben?" She murmurs when the commercials start, and his head whips around like he's heard a gunshot. "Can you come to the kitchen, please?"

"What does my mom need?"

"Nothing, it's not her that's asking, it's me."

He doesn't bother excusing himself, just rises and follows her. "Your mom asked me to make a Bechamel."

"Okay. And?"

"I don't know how." 

His brow knits. "You can't make a Bechamel?"

Rey clenches her jaw. "We've been over this. If you can't put it on a waffle cone, I probably don't know how to make it." 

"But it's one of the original four mother sauces." 

"The four mother what?"

"Mother sauces. They're one of the foundations of culinary education."

"There was no _culinary education_ at my community college, Ben."

His eyes dart over her. "You really did learn how to do all of that on your own, didn't you?"

She feels flooded with shame, rather than proud, of what she made in spite of her lack of support. "Every last thing," she mutters, as her cheeks redden.

"Hey, I didn-" he starts, but Leia is finally hanging up the phone, turning away from the oven, and jumps a little.

"What are you doing here?" She says, sounding almost accusatory.

"I," Ben starts, confused, pointing a finger at Rey, then retracting it. "I came to help."

"You...came to help?" Leia repeats dumbly.

"Yes, I'm _helping,_ mom." His nostrils flare. "Rey asked me to make the sauce."

Leia turns back to the Brussels sprouts, identically spacing them across the baking sheet. "Okay. But make sure you get the balance of the flour just right, I don't want it too thin, an even coating just over the top layer of the po-"

"Mom I've made Bechamel a thousand times," Ben reaches for a Pyrex and begins pouring milk.

"I know, I know. But I don't want it leaking into the lower layers of the potatoes, or else we won't get the proper crust on top, and..." she turns to look at him, "your Bechamel was always a little thin."

Ben stops pouring, stops staring at the meniscus of the liquid just meeting the mark for two cups, and turns to meet his mother's gaze.

That same feeling, driving Rey to cover her ears and hum to herself, returns.

"I'll make sure it's properly thickened, Leia." She rushes to say, and Leia offers her a grateful nod, turning back to the stove. 

Rey frowns. Her assurance, _her_ confidence, is so readily accepted, while someone else's is not. 

That someone else seems to notice too. Rey can see his eyes just over the lip of the Pyrex, drilling into her. She swallows hard. "Can we please just make it?" She begs, softly enough that Leia can't hear her over the roar of the stove top fan.

His gaze doesn't relent in its intensity, but eventually he nods and hands her the half-hewn block of cheese. "Grate that, finely."

"Yes, chef." He shoots her a sharp sideways glance, but the longer he stares it softens, digesting and appreciating the tease in her voice. 

He continues murmuring half-directions to her as she watches him work, while she makes the dressing for the Brussels sprouts, and tills the stuffing, ensuring it's fluffy.

At one point Ben is dripping milk into the gradually thickening mixture, deftly turning a wooden spoon to keep it all in motion, and Rey is watching the fine bones in the back of his hand dance as the spoon rotates. 

"If you add the milk all in one go, it'll seize and the roux is likely to form clumps. You'll never be able to incorporate it after that, and your sauce won't get smooth no matter how long you stir."

"Slowly add the milk." She repeats, and he nods.

"And the milk should be warm. Not so warm that if it's left to sit it would form a skin, becau-"

"Because the skin on the milk would potentially create clumps." Rey finishes, and Ben nods. "I do have _some_ experience with dairy products, you know."

"Oh really? How so?"

"I dabble in making ice cream, actually." She picks up some lemon seeds off the counter and puts them in the little waste bin over the sink.

"Oh, cool hobby." He drawls, and Rey glances at him over her shoulder. 

For once, Leia's been quiet, so much so that Rey almost forgot she was there. But now, she's staring between them. She doesn't notice Rey looking back.

Ben doesn't notice either. Rey drifts a little further away from him. 

A little more like she's just the woman who owns the ice cream parlor next door. 

She opens the second oven to reveal the pan of scalloped potatoes, and Ben spoons his Bechamel over top. Leia hovers nearby, vigilant, and Rey releases the compliment she has waiting spring-loaded on her tongue. "It's perfect, Ben."

He keeps his hard gaze on his task and says nothing. When he's finished, he looks at his mother.

He gets a brief, tight nod, and then Leia whirls away, in search of something else that needs her attention.

Rey swallows hard and wonders for the dozenth time what was running through Ben's head when he invited her here.

\-------

Next thing he knows, Rey and Leia are bringing dishes out from the kitchen and arranging them on the long pine table. He's been given the task of whipping up a cocktail for everyone to have with dinner.

Thankfully Rey, with her industrious spirit, juiced all nine of the lemons that sat in a bowl on the counter. To be fair, his mother didn't specify she only needed the juice of one.

This leaves Ben with a sizable quantity of lemon juice, He digs out some stick cinnamon, which he grates and toasts in a pan, and finds a bottle of Vermont maple syrup to amp up the maple flavor on top of what's already imparted into his whiskey. 

He sighs at having to wash his parents' set of crystal low-ball glasses, gone dusty in the hall china cabinet. He's drying them off when he turns to find his dad, without any attempt to be sneaky, pouring more whiskey into the pitcher.

"Dad! I already had the balance of the ingredients just right!"

"Nothing worse than a weak cocktail, son." Han pretends to complain, but the half of his face Ben can see curves into that lopsided smile. Ben keeps his glare in place. "I'm kidding. But your whiskey deserves to be the star of the show. Lando says it's good shit." 

Ben wants to tell his dad to back off, that this is his job and he knows how to properly make a drink.

But it's praise. Sort of. He can tell by the look in his dad's eyes that he meant it that way, so he tucks all his rebukes back down inside him and nods, gesturing to the dried glasses, and Han begins ladling.

Ben deposits a glass before each perfectly arranged place setting: Leia's good set of off-white china, with a deep orange charger underneath. Matching orange and white striped napkins provide a cozy bed to gold utensils, which harmonize with the gold-rimmed water glasses. 

There are perhaps fifteen dishes, all covered and keeping their tantalizing secrets of what's inside, scattered down the table. An empty pride of place sits waiting for the turkey. 

Everyone filters in, his parents still murmuring in the kitchen, and as they settle, Chewie pointedly offers Ben and Rey two neighboring seats at the far end. "It'll have to stand in for the kids' table." He mutters, and Ben has nothing to offer in return but an eye roll, but Rey breaks into a stream of giggles that make Chewie's eyes gleam.

It's been a while since Chewie's tired brand of humor had a fresh audience. "You promise no throwing food at each other during the meal?"

"I wouldn't put it past her." Ben says before Rey can reply herself, and he jumps a little at the hard, open handed smack she lays on his upper arm.

Several people take their first sips, and every single one has a kind word to throw his way. He blinks and musters a few novel ways to say thank you, then finally takes a sip himself. And he has to admit, it's good. Quite strong -_thanks Han- _but good. 

Leia sweeps in with the turkey and everyone oohs and aahs. Han follows close behind, brandishing an electric carving knife like it's the sword of Excalibur. Between riotous chuckles he pretends to knight the turkey, thanking it for its sacrifice, and as his antiquated exclamations get more and more ridiculous, everyone at the table dissolves into laughter. 

No longer is it like he's been gone nearly a decade. No longer is it like a million unanswered questions and still-raw arguments linger in the air. Instead, he feels like he belongs. He's giddy with it.

Finally Han plugs in the knife, via an extension cord, but several awkward stabs leave small morsels of turkey spraying amongst them all, and Ben has tears streaming down his face as he leans over for Rey to brush bits of browned bird skin out of his hair. She collects it in her hand.

"Where's Bebe when I need her?" She wheezes, glancing around for a place to put the turkey skin, and Ben fakes like he's going to lick the pieces out of her hand. She squeals in disgust, yanking her hand out of his grip, and but he pulls a kitchen towel off his shoulder and wipes her palm clean, balling it up and then gently pushing her hand back into her own possession.

Everyone else is busy gathering themselves and shouting various carving instructions to Han, but for a moment Ben is outside of all that, his fingers dragging against the back of Rey's hand as they part.

The spell is broken when he hears the front door close softly, and there, standing half-lit in the doorway, is Tillie.

Her face holds the delighted confusion of someone who has come upon joyful chaos, mouth agape, but then her eyes shift to where Ben and Rey's hands just barely still touch, and her head tilts slightly.

"Look who's here!" Snap bellows, and everyone yells her name asynchronously. 

Before anything can be served, though, the expected line comes out of Holdo's mouth. "Before we eat, and now that everybody is finally here, I think it's time we took a moment to say something we're thankful for." 

Tillie sets a pie down on the sideboard and drifts into the only open chair, the one across from Rey. 

Chewie groans. "Ami, I did not just get assaulted by a spray of meat to spend five more minutes in agony waiting for this damn meal." A ripple of titters passes through the table, but Holdo is insistent, and as a show of determination offers to start.

"I'm thankful for my health, and that the city council has finally turned back over to the Democrats, and that my daughter made it in time to share this meal with us." She shoots a warm smile down the table.

Leia's up next. "I'm thankful that the new expansion at the food bank went so well, and that so many more people can access the services now." 

Han looks at his wife for a moment, then says plainly, "I'm thankful Ben is here."

A hush grabs the room. Ben looks up, meeting his dad's eye across the quiet distance. Han's not one for vulnerability, but Ben remembers that call from last week.

He wonders, for the first time, if things are changing. 

He tunes out everyone else's offerings, too caught up in his dad's words, until they've circled around to Rey. Her eyes are nervous and her voice a little unsure.

"I'm um, thankful the first six months of my business have gone...so well. And for new friends," she adds shyly.

"I'm thankful you guys like my whiskey enough to allow it at the hallowed table of Thanksgiving dinner," Ben says, half-serious, knowing that to say anything more weighty would feel wrong.

When all is said and done they toast, everyone taking a hearty swallow of their cocktail, and the meal begins. 

As always, round one consists of turkey, salad, peas, and rolls. Don't ask Ben why their dinner is divided into two courses when everything is already on the table, or why these specific four dishes were chosen for the first course. It's a tradition established by Anakin and Padme, and the first rule of the Skywalker-Solo household, practically encoded in the blood, is _don't mess with tradition._

Eventually, people start asking him more in-depth questions about his business. It almost seems to help that Rey is there. After all this time, he's basically a stranger, but so is she.

Tillie's living on the far south end of Hoth these days, working as an engineer for one of the medical tech companies with its lab out there. She fields a lot of the same questions Ben does, about her schedule and her coworkers, office culture, the like. 

She does it all with that mild imperiousness that started to bother Ben a long time ago. As he got older, more aware of himself and others, he's never understood her slight metaphysical removal, the way she seems to endure conversations like they're a chore which she indulges, at which she simpers. It feels especially out of place in the face of her own mother's warmth and authenticity, but the Holdos always had a sort of laissez-faire parenting style, letting Tillie and her brother Grant just...become whomever they were going to be. For better -or in this case, if you ask Ben- worse. 

Rey keeps mostly quiet, except for delivering compliments each time she tries what someone brought, and despite her frequent dinners of half a packet of ramen or the infamous peanut butter spoon, she inhales everything that's offered to her. She laughs at all the jokes, even when her eyes bug out because some of Chewie's punchlines aren't fit for polite company, and without being asked, she rises to top off everyone's water glasses. 

When it's time for the second course, Ben rises to collect the china plates from everyone and take them into the kitchen, grabbing the clean stack from the island and returning to the room.

As he enters, he sees Rey putting one more roll onto the orange charger in front of her, reaching to spoon some Brussels sprouts next to it, and Tillie shoots a shocked glance over at her. Several people are returning from bathroom breaks or refilling their cocktails, so Ben strains his ears to hear down the mostly empty table.

"Um, Rey, whatcha doing?" Tillie asks, a note of faux-innocence in her voice, and Rey glances up with a tiny smile.

"Just getting a head start on the second course I guess," Rey laughs, "I helped make the Brussels sprouts, and I've been so eager to try them all night."

"But that's the charger." Tillie says flatly, pointing with both hands. 

"The what? The plate?" Rey surmises, her hand tracing the edge of the plate. 

"It's not really a plate, it's a charger." Tillie repeats more emphatically, and Rey just frowns a little, shakes her head. "You're not really supposed to eat off of it," Tillie sighs, as though this explanation is some great burden, "it's more for decoration." 

Ben sees a scarlet flush sweep over Rey's face and neck in a millisecond, and he can see her grasping for a way to fix it. But the dressing on the sprouts has already made a small reservoir on the plate, so she can't easily return them to the serving dish, and besides, there's nowhere to move the charger anyway. Tillie just watches in half-amusement half-dismay as Rey flounders, glancing down the table to see if anyone else, especially, he guesses, his mother, has noticed. 

Out of nowhere, Ben remembers Snoke scolding him at opening night. He remembers Rey, walking right up and fixing it.

He shoves the clean plates into Han's gesticulating arms. His dad startles a little but grabs them, not missing a beat in his conversation with Lando, and Ben returns to his seat. 

"Finally, someone else who had the same idea as me." He mutters, feigning annoyance, and spoons some stuffing onto his own charger. He hears a soft, wordless cry come from Tillie, and looks up to find both women with gazes pinned on him.

"Same idea?" Tillie squeaks. 

"Yeah, you know. Using this as your plate for the second course." They both continue to stare. "It's got a much bigger circumference than the plates we use. I can get as much as I want of everything, but my food won't end up touching, which I hate."

Rey is still blinking at him, perhaps still processing the residual panic for behaving out of turn, so he gently presses his knee into hers under the table.

She springs back to life. "I don't care about my food touching, I just want all the surface area I can get. More space, bigger helpings." She says shakily.

"What do you think, Tillie, want to join the club?" Ben inquires, as Chewie passes him the last three clean plates.

"Uh, well. Some of us have no problem getting seconds, if desired. I don't need it all right off the bat," her eyebrows jump, "so I think I'll stick with the smaller plate that I'm supposed to be eating off of."

Ben answers her proffered hand with one of the plates, and places his and Rey's behind them on the sideboard. The dishes begin circulating.

Soon his plate is full, tiny slivers of space buffering each dish. Rey's looks similar, but with larger portions all cheek-by-jowl crowding her plate: turkey, and Brussels sprouts, and stuffing, and two kinds of potatoes, scalloped and mashed (skin-on), plus Leia's wilted kale with squash and slivered almonds. Her turkey is slathered with cranberry sauce and Ben watches in slight horror as she drizzles gravy over absolutely everything else.

"Since when did you turn into a bottomless pit?" He intones under his breath, and he can practically see Tillie straining to hear what he says. 

Rey, fork piled high and halfway to her mouth, looks over. "How often do I get home cooked food, Solo?"

"Fair point."

Everyone's culinary zeal fades slowly; conversation picks up as bites of food become intermittent rather than constant. Eventually everyone adjourns to the living room for cards and drinks, giving themselves a while to digest before dessert. 

Ben stands in the empty dining room, listening to the murmur of conversation that floats in, and breathes out. He lets some of the tension leave his shoulders.

Despite the morning she had, Ben hasn't seen Rey look stricken, or seen her eyes well up, since they got here. He's relieved this place, and to a certain extent his family's nonsense, have proven such a potent distraction for her.

And Ben himself feels, well, good. He didn't know what to expect when he said yes to his mother yesterday, but he certainly didn't expect _this._

He finally lets himself think what's been hovering at the corner of his mind all through dinner.

_Maybe tonight won't go so badly after all. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment below with your favorite Thanksgiving or other special holiday dish! As a food freak this is in the top 5 questions I love asking people.
> 
> Comments regarding the emotional and psychological revelations in this chapter are welcome too. Obvi.


	17. Had Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone.
> 
> The past week has been spent frantically reorganizing my entire workplace to allow us to do our thing remotely. I work in healthcare, but not the direct "taking care of sick people" part, so it's been a ton of new protocols and paperwork to sort out. How are the precautions affecting you? Are you able to approximate your normal life from home? Or have things changed drastically for you?
> 
> Thanks for your patience as I figured my responsibilities out these past several days. Here is our next chapter.
> 
> Upcoming writings will be penned under the strange, hermetic veil of spending 23 hours a day in my home. Stay healthy and safe!

Lando asks Ben for a shot of whiskey, and keeps him engaged with all sorts of complicated questions about the height of their stills, the length of the boil, and the aging process.

Ben's got one eye on Rey playing rummy with Leia, Holdo, and Tillie in the corner, but Leia eventually begs off to go set up the dessert buffet and yells for someone to take her place. Han and Company are riveted to the current football game, and soon, Lando joins their ranks, so Ben begrudgingly joins cards, then attempts to convince everyone to play bid whist instead.

But they've only_ just explained_ rummy to Rey, Tillie drawls. So they go through a few rounds, pausing to let her ask questions. Rey's a quick study. Han's circulating with the second pitcher of cocktails Ben made, and a few more people have shots while they watch the 49ers turn the game around, and actually have a shot at winning.

Someone places a shot of whiskey near his hand while he's focused on the game. Tillie eggs him on to down it, so he sips it slowly just out of spite.

As soon as dessert is announced and everyone gets up, he knocks the rest of the shot back and follows the crowd into the dining room.

Leia's laid out the sugar-laden offerings buffet style, and Ben is content to stay at the back of the line surveying everything, while everyone else reaches over one another.

"Let me guess, you won't be having anything?" Rey's voice is soft behind him, and he turns to see her leaning against the doorway to the hall, half in shadow.

He shrugs, aiming his gaze back at the table. "I might nibble on a cookie or two."

She shakes her head, eyes wide as though marveling at his strangeness.

Ben feels the warmth of the shot in his belly, maybe the warmth of her gaze too, and it makes him grin a tiny bit.

"I'd think you'd be sick of this stuff, seeing it day-in and day-out."

Rey shakes her head again, cracking into her own wisp of a smile, then tilts her head against the shelves, gasping dramatically, "I'll never get tired of sugar." 

"Why not?" Ben says on a small laugh.

Rey stops lolling about. The question seeming to sober her, and she blinks a few times, uncertain.

"I....I never got to have treats, as a kid." She tugs one shoulder up in a half-shrug, staring at the ground, "So now..."

Ben doesn't know much about her life before Irresistible. 

But based on what he's learned since just this morning, he can intuit.

And what he intuits probably pales in comparison to the truth.

He feels his smile fade as he stares at her, and she looks at the floor still, refusing to meet his gaze.

He looks over his shoulder, and only Han and Snap are still lingering around the table. He jerks his head towards the trays laden with cookies, the spiced bundt cake dripping with a maple drizzle, the elderberry pie, and a half-dozen other dishes. "Hey," he murmurs to her, and she looks up finally, "go make up for some lost time."

She doesn't smile again, but her face still becomes warmer somehow, in a way he can't explain.

He takes up residence in her doorway spot, allowing the hall's darkness to shroud him. Her long elegant fingers hover over a certain cookie or flip between two different slices of cake, and by the time she's finished, her petite dessert plate can't even be seen, utterly obscured by the mound of carbs and sugar she's painstakingly built.

Before she leaves the room her eyes dart up and find him in the darkness.

"C'mere for a second, Solo." She mutters, and he already doesn't like her tone, so he furrows his brow and stays put. She rolls her eyes, sensing his reticence. "What, you think I'm gonna stab you or something? Unlikely. Your dad took all the big knives back into the kitchen."

He cracks into a grin, and against his better judgment takes a few steps forward.

She takes a clean spoon from the stack next to the napkins, then approaches a cardboard canister in a bowl full of ice.

As Ben draws nearer, he recognizes the light blue shade of the container. Her own ice cream, of course.

She holds the spoon poised over it. "One spoonful," she requests, and Ben rolls his eyes.

"I've already told you, I don't like anything too sw-"

"Just one spoonful, Solo," she insists, and juts her chin forward, "and then I'll stop bothering you about this."

Her eyes beg.

_Why do you need this from me so badly?_ He wonders.

"You'll stop bothering me forever?" 

"Forever." She confirms, and Ben tries not to consider the meaning of that word, about how much longer their lives will remain, even distantly, in orbit.

He leans forward a little, and with a little excited hop she curls a substantial spoonful into a neat little spiral, proffering it to him.

Instead of taking the spoon from her waiting hand, he leans more and closes his mouth around it. 

As he pulls back, he glances up to see heat in her eyes.

_Not here, _he radiates, and this time it's his eyes that are begging.

Unsolicited, memories of the peanut butter spoon flash across his mind. 

She shakes herself, as though out of a burgeoning trance, and clears her throat. "Well?"

He straightens up, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth, taking a moment to let the flavors meld.

It hits first with a bright citrus tang, surely there's some lemon zest and maybe even some pulp in there, because it has a sour edge he didn't expect. As the milk and sugar take over, a faint hint of the lavender comes through, and it's that, the taste and smell of that small purple flower, that lingers on his palate after he's swallowed.

"It's good." He says curtly, offering nothing more, and she twirls the spoon between her fingers.

"What's good about it?"

"Not too sweet," he elaborates, and refuses to do so further, challenging her expectant gaze with a stubbornness she's smart enough to know she can't banish.

"Fine," she says, tossing her hair over one shoulder. "I got my one spoonful."

Ben thinks of all the times she's disarmed him with her words: made him feel uncomfortably seen, unexpectedly understood. Now's his turn.

"One spoonful wasn't really what you wanted, though." He says lowly, and she freezes, eyes darting back to him.

"What? What do you mean?"

"You wanted to change my mind." He responds immediately. "Like you do about a lot of things." 

She glances out to the living room, but in this cavernous house, everyone else is too far away to overhear.   
"I just," she says, as her head swings back to him, "sometimes I think you'd be _happier_ if you weren't so..." she toys with the edge of the tablecloth, "resistant, at times."

There she goes again. Cutting through all the artifice and grabbing the issue right by it's bleeding heart.

He takes the coward's way out.

"Especially against someone so _Irresistible,_" He whispers, reaching out to rotate that light blue container, until the red block letters spelling the name of the parlor face them both.

Her faraway gaze drifts away and she snorts. She tries to tamp down a laugh, but it manages to escape, and the the tension uncoils from his spine.

She picks up her cornucopia of treats. Ben picks up a single gingersnap cookie, and they wander back into the living room, Rey taking up residence at the card table again while Ben sits in an armchair away from the fray, watching everyone shout over the football game and chat during commercials. Lando wanders, singing the praises of Ben's maple whiskey, adding nips to everyone's coffee. At some point the card game ends, and Rey starts collecting dirty dessert dishes, and Ben can hear his mother tipsily insisting that the dishes were "always Benny's job." 

He cringes at the resurrection of his most hated nickname, but he rises from his chair and takes the stack from Rey's hands, leaving her to gather the rest.

The kitchen is a living nightmare.

"Were the dishes really always your job?" Rey says, surveying the endless sea of utensils, stacked dirty plates, and cooking vessels all awaiting their moment to get clean.

"I mean, my dad would always help, but, yeah."

Ben remembers year after year of Han rumbling, "Standing is good for the digestion," as Ben took his position in front of the sink, sleeves rolled up. 

"Leave your dad with his friends," Rey says with a wave of her hand. "Let's do this." 

"You're a guest, I couldn't ask you to-"

"I don't know how to do this part," Rey blurts, pointing her thumb to the living room as a deep blush sets into her cheeks. 

"What part?"

"The part after the small talk," she rushes out, refusing to look at him just like she did earlier. "After the 'hi, how are you, so what do you do' routine. I don't know how to continue conversation with people. To make myself seem normal."

Ben thinks of every time he's looked upon her through the parlor window with envy. Every breezy chat she had, every casual smile she offered to a total stranger. 

He thinks again of everything he's learned about her today. Of those inferences he's made about her early life. 

He swallows. "Clear off the island and set out some dry kitchen towels so we have a place to put the clean stuff."

He can see the gratitude in her gaze. He doesn't acknowledge it. 

They settle into a silent routine, and his hands are red from the hot water when he hears the front door slam shut. He cocks his head, wondering who left, when a familiar throaty voice carries through to him. No words, just the intonation.

He freezes. Rey doesn't notice, too busy rearranging the clean wet dishes on the island to help economize space. She doesn't look up until heavy footsteps wander into the kitchen and a blue gaze pierces right into Ben's.

He sets the white paper bag on the counter without looking away. Rey finally looks up when Ben breaks the silence.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ben spits.

Luke blinks for several seconds, then takes a breath, "It's Thanksgiving, and this is my sister's house, kid. Don't sound so surprised."

\-------

Rey frowns. She doesn't recognize the man in the doorway, but surmises from his words that he must be Leia's brother.

_The one Ben used to work with?_

"Did they tell you I would be here?" Ben thunders, and Rey can feel it coming in his voice, the escalation she's heard countless times in the course of their own fights.

But this time there's a venom in Ben's gaze Rey's never seen before.

The blue-eyed man scoffs. "Come on, I'm not that stupid." 

Ben winces. "In that case, are you going to go?"

The man shrugs, his white paper bag crinkling as it moves, "No. I'm already here, so..."

"I think you need to leave." Ben insists, and Rey can see where he's gripping the edge of the counter so tight his fingers have blanched at the ends.

"Why do I have to leave?" The man goads, glancing around, suddenly seeming to notice her for the first time. That leveling gaze is trained on her for a long moment, until Ben speaks again.

"Because I think it's a very bad idea for us to-"

"If anyone should be leaving, it's the guy who's willfully been ignoring his parents for seven years." 

She sucks in a sharp breath. The man's eyes dart back to her. She detects faint regret, as though he realizes that if he was going to say that, it shouldn't have been in front of her.

Or perhaps he realizes he shouldn't have said it at all.

Before anything can break the breathless tension someone in the living room calls out, _Luke. _The man sighs, and turns away without another glance or word.

Ben doesn't move. The water's still running, straight into the drain, and Rey keeps waiting for him to reach down and turn it off, but he never does.

She approaches him quietly, reaching around him to push on the faucet handle.

He's practically vibrating with repressed anger.

Rey thought she'd seen him mad, but...it's nothing like this.

She doesn't move away.

Instead she raises one tentative hand and lets it land gently on his shoulder blade.

The second she makes contact he explodes into motion, brushing her off, so abruptly that she stumbles back a step.

He beelines for the counter where a half-full bottle of his maple whiskey sits, and seemingly without decision he reaches for a shot glass in the lineup of dirty dishes.

He fills the glass with shaking hands, uncaring when some of it spills over, then downs the shot before Rey can so much as blink. 

She stands bewildered by the sink, waiting for him to acknowledge _that,_ to give her some sort of context. 

He doesn't. He turns to the island, adjusting the dishes as she was before. So she turns slowly, following his lead, and turns the water on. They tacitly switch jobs, but are yet again interrupted by voices drawing closer. 

It'e Leia this time, talking with Tillie in the doorway to the dining room. Chewie darts past them to quietly add two coffee mugs to the armada of dirty waiting dishes, then disappears again.

"...and so I tried to tell her spinach puffs would be a bad choice, but she insisted, and after all, it was her wedding. It's not my fault half her guests had green stuff in their teeth in the reception photos."

Tillie snorts a laugh, and it's evident from the flow of Leia's words that she's had a bit to drink.

"She needed _something_ to bring her ego back down a little," Tillie chips in conspiratorially, "anyone who spends four figures to release a hundred doves at their own wedding must have a serious complex."

"And half of them were definitely pigeons!"

"Mom..." Ben cuts in, his voice dark.

Leia turns away from the dining table, glancing to her son. Ben's stares nervously at Tillie, lingering for a moment.

"...do you really think he should be here?"

Leia sighs, reaching out to scrape a smear of crusted gravy off the door of the oven, "I forgot to tell him you would be here, Ben." Perhaps she's had even more to drink than Rey realizes, when she adds, "When we invited you, I never dreamed you would really show up."

"Well I did," Ben mutters acidly, hands clenching into fists, "and I would appreciate it if you-"

"He's family, Benny. This is no way to behave."

Ben snaps.

"_YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID_!" Ben yells, and the chatter in the living room dampens a little. "I never wanted to see him again, after that!"

Rey glances between them, her anxiety taking over, tuning them out.

It's turning into a full-blown family fight. The familiar tones, the familiar words suck her right back into years in broken homes. An endless tableau of arguments, some violent, between mothers and sons, sisters and brothers, flash across her memory.

She hid in closets, under beds, pillows jammed over her head or her fingers stuffed in her ears in desperation not to see it or hear it. Not to hear the wrenching of someone's sobs or the fleshy sound of a landed slap.

_Escape, ignore. Escape, ignore._ Her brain chants.

But she isn't a child anymore, she can't just run away. She wouldn't even know where to go to hide.

The only thing holding a full-blown panic attack at bay is the faint buzz of the drinks she had with dinner, and that whiskey shot during cards.

She whirls to the counter, to Ben's already used shot glass and the bottled amber liquid beckoning.

With hands shakier than Ben's, she pours and downs an overflowing shot. She focuses on the burn, hearing Ben and Leia's voices like they're underwater: distant and distorted. She rolls the hint of maple around on her tongue, feels the alcohol diffuse into her stomach, and pretends it's already hitting her, already bolstering the buffer between her and what's happening across the room. 

The addition of a new voice is what draws her from her safe place.

"I can see I clearly shouldn't have stayed, so let me just," Luke's voice drips condescension, where he stands in the other doorway, the one that leads to the back hall. Rey looks over at him, her hands braced on the counter.

"No, Luke, you're not going anywhere, you ju-" Leia insists, and Rey can see more barely suppressed anger rising to the surface of Ben's body.

"Let him go, Mom, let him fucki-"

"You do _not_ speak to me that way," Leia decrees, her voice deadly calm.

Her gaze darts to Rey and then to Tillie, who stands stunned in the dining room, watching as though transfixed.

"If you ever want to see me again, he leaves!" Ben threatens, and the whole room goes still.

No one moves, no one seems to _breathe_ for an eternity.

Then Leia shakes her head. "You've said that before, and you didn't mean it. After all, here you are."

Before Ben can defend the veracity of his threat, Tillie steps into the room. "Ben," she begins, and Rey's mouth parts in shock.

"Ben, it's been nearly ten years," she's probably trying to sound pleading, her wide, round eyes blinking wetly at him. She can't cover up the edge of derision in her tone, though. "Don't you think it's time you let this all go? It happened, there's nothing you can do to ch-"

"Tillie why are you talking?" Rey says, before she even realizes she's spoken.

Rey's not sure why it was Tillie's comment that pushed her over the edge, that made her determined to break all of this, but she shifts on her feet a little, planting herself.

Tillie turns those owlish eyes on her, looking more confused than beseeching.

She gapes, blinking at Rey, "I-"

"I cannot stress enough how much this does not involve you." 

Rey's surprised at the hardness in her own voice, and the silence after.

Everyone stares at her like _she's_ the one who just tried to intrude on a family argument, but Ben's the one to shatter the silence.

"You know what, fuck it." Ben mutters. Slumped over, he throws down the kitchen towel he held. "Clearly nothing has cha-"

"Ben, help me take the trash out."

Rey's not so much asking for help as commanding. He turns to her, shaking his head minutely in confusion, but she just holds his gaze.

_Please. Please just do it. For once in your goddamn life, now when it really matters...Let. Me. Help._

She nods her chin in the direction of the nearly overflowing Hefty bag in the silver trash bin to her left.

He mashes his lips together, but finally complies, turning and hauling the bag out of the bin. He holds it steady while Rey pulls the red plastic handles taut and ties them together. She grabs the sink refuse bowl from up on the windowsill and watches as Ben marches past her, the trash bag held in one hand.

He snatches the dwindling bottle of liquor in the other, then makes a beeline for the kitchen door. As Ben throws the door open so hard it hits the wall, Rey slows down to grab his jacket from the row of hooks, and it's just long enough for her to hear it.

"You know, this is just like when we dated. Any time something serious happened, he acted like it was ludicrous that my opinion should matter in th-"

She shuts the door before she can hear anymore.

She watches Ben drop the alcohol onto the grass and stalk over to the bin against the garage. He's still carrying the massive bag in one hand, cording his forearm with the strain.

He lifts the lid and throws it in, turning around, anticipating the exact location of her gaze immediately.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Silent, assessing.

Then she reaches out her arm, his jacket dangling from her fist, and he sighs. 

\-------

Ben sees his coat in her hand, barely visible against the black of the night. He approaches her, just close enough to pull it from her grasp and slide it on. He takes two steps backwards and retrieves the bottle of whiskey without looking, then settles in one of two Adirondack chairs that sit facing the fire pit, under the drapery of the willow tree. There are coals still smoldering in the fire pit, which Ben knows isn't safe to have left unattended, but now that he's here, he doesn't bother putting them out.

He pushes the cork out of the bottle with one hand and takes a long pull, so long that he can't even register the flavor on his tongue anymore, it's just an endless tang and burn drawing him further away from his thoughts. 

That's what he wants.

When he turns to look behind him he can see Rey, through the gently shifting branches, watching him. She has a mixture of confusion and wonder on her face. And it only takes a moment of holding his gaze before she walks over, to the free chair.

When she breaks through the hanging leaves Ben takes stock of the way her arms are wrapped around herself, her thin sweater the only barrier between her and the damp coastal air.

She settles on the edge of the free chair and hunches over a little, eyes still on him, still assessing.

After a long moment, Ben grabs the lapels of his coat and holds them wide open. Her hard eyes dart to his hands and back. She hesitates, beginning to get up from her seat twice, before on the third time following through. She approaches slowly, then sits on the front-most plank of his chair, right between his legs. She just barely perches. Not a single millimeter of them is touching.

But as he reaches forward, to snug the coat around her narrow shoulders, the gesture pulls her into him, deeper into the seat until his hips are flush with her backside and her torso is leaned up against his. 

They synchronously look over their shoulders towards the house, but the tree is so dense they can barely see the lights from the kitchen through the leaves, let alone any clear view of the windows. Ben feel Rey relax into him, as though assured they won't be seen, and it imparts upon him a strange mix of irritation and relief that she feels thus.

He can just barely get the sides of the coat together with both of them inside it, but as long as they're still it isn't a problem, so Ben tries to focus on the way his breaths elevate the weight of Rey's back against his chest, and lets his eyes slip closed.

Slowly, he feels his cheeks burn in embarrassment. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sure this isn't what you expected, on Thanksgiving."

She's quiet for a long time, so long that Ben almost opens his eyes to try and look at her, but then finally, she shrugs. "Don't worry. I had no idea what to expect."

"I just mean that typically families wouldn-"

"I have no idea what families would normally do, Ben." Her voice has taken on a sharp edge so Ben backs off, just holds her tight within his jacket. They both stare at the flaring and winking sparks in the remnants of the fire, slowly consuming the two pieces of wood left there.

"But you're right," she whispers, and Ben hunches a little closer to her, "it did make me uncomfortable."

Ben swallows hard and nods. 

"For so long everything seemed so normal. Like how any family would be." He hears her breath hitch. "All night, _I _felt so normal."

Ben's eyes close again, and he would run his hand over his face, if it weren't for the way he's responsible for keeping them warm.

Ben can feel that last huge gulp of alcohol beginning to hit him, to stir the earliest versions of a headache in his temples. He shifts around a little and Rey does too, in tandem with him. 

"You and Tillie dated?" She says abruptly, and Ben blinks several times.

"Yeah. In college. Mostly because our moms wanted us to, in the beginning."

Rey snorts a little, muttering _Sounds like Leia,_ and it occurs to Ben that he doesn't know how many times his mother went to the parlor or how well Rey might now her. How she might even know things he doesn't know himself, due to the length of his familial separation. 

"And after that?" Rey probes, and Ben turns his head towards her, confused.

"After what?"

"After the beginning. Why did you keep dating, after that?" 

Ben thinks back, to all the aborted discussions and patronizing hands on his shoulder. "She thought she could fix me." He says, startled for a moment by his own naked honesty. More words hang in the air, shifting and sliding among the sway of the branches. Ben finds himself discontent to leave them unspoken. "That's something I like about you, I think. You realized, at some point, you couldn't fix me."

She arches her neck, tilts her head, finds his eyes. "No. That's not it." She licks her lips. "I realized what you need is not to _be_ fixed." 

They stay there, staring at each other as they do so often. And just as often, Ben feels like he knows nothing and everything about her, all at once.

"But Ben," She rasps, sitting up, breaking the warm cocoon of his coat to look more fully at him. Cold air rushes in. "Things are never going to get better until you're honest with me."

Ugly, self-protective instincts rise up inside him, accessories to his anxiety. Instincts to push way, to defer, to defy her so strongly that she'll be scared away.

He fights them. He denies every instinct. 

He holds her gaze, repeats her words in his head, and finally admits to himself that she's right.

That he can trust her. That he's been more vulnerable with her than anyone in years, and just as often been awful to her, yet she's still here. She still wants to help him. 

_Let. Her. Help._

She reaches for the nearly empty liquor bottle next to them on the grass, taking a pull, then settles onto his chest lain on her side, content to be exposed to the cold, it would seem.

He's content too, so long as she stays pressed up against him. 

"I can't say it'll happen all at once," he rumbles, and she presses her ear closer to his chest, "Or that it'll be easy to hear. But...I'll tell you everything."

Ben feels her exhale, a breath so deep he wonders if she's been holding it these past five months, but again, she just presses closer.

They finish the bottle like that. They hear as people say their goodbyes on the front porch, the slamming of car doors, the low hum of engines.

No one ever comes looking for them.

After perhaps half an hour, Ben whispers, "We both drank too much to drive." 

Rey nods in agreement, but says nothing. Without deciding to, his hand raises and begins stroking her hair, smoothing it against the curve of her skull, and it's another long while before she rises from the chair, his jacket and shirt clutched in one of her fists. He follows her up, looming over her as she looks up at him.

Her eyes drink him in for a moment, then she turns. They leave the empty bottle next to their chair, the last embers finally gone out, the backyard left to total darkness.

The house is dark too, but the kitchen door is unlocked. Someone must have finished cleaning the kitchen, because it looks how Ben always remembered, perfect except for the perpetual stack of magazines and haphazardly jotted notes his mother keeps next to the phone.

Rey silently leads him down the hall. They pass the doorway to the living room and there's Uncle Chewie snoring on the couch, a blanket thrown over him, his snores fading as they keep walking. Rey's steps are slow and uncertain in the dark, so he takes over, slipping in front of her to lead them to the stairs, up and to the left, to the end of the hall. To his old room. 

He digs a toothbrush from a drawer in the adjoining bathroom, ripping off the plastic cover in the thin moonlight, brushing quickly then watching Rey as she does the same. She keeps glancing fervently at him, as though he might disappear or walk away if she doesn't keep him there with her gaze. 

When she's finished, he watches from the bathroom doorway as she pulls off her sweater and bra, opening a drawer and donning some old shirt from a high school 5k run he can't remember doing. He strips down to the t-shirt under his sweater and his boxer briefs. She's already in his bed by the time he comes into the room, and he crawls in, leaning his forehead gently against hers. He can feel her breath on his face, and he feels a sudden swell of fear. 

He presses his hips to hers, whispering, "I don't know whether I want us to have sex, or just for me to spoon you." He halfheartedly jokes, trying to draw attention from all he's said and all she's seen, in the past six hours.

She pulls back enough to look in his eyes for a moment. She sees right through the attempt at humor.

It's a wonder he even bothered trying.

She rolls to her back, protruding her stomach under his old shirt. "Not sure I want to fuck while I'm pregnant with this Thanksgiving food baby." She jests softly, patting the small mound of her abdomen, and Ben breathes a near-silent laugh. She grins back, but slowly the moment fades.

She leans into him, lips parting. He responds, meeting her lips with his own, fusing them in a kiss. 

It's so soft he almost wants to sob. 

She pulls back. "Option three," she whispers, and nudges him gently to roll the other way, away from her. He acquiesces. 

Once he's settled on his side she presses up against him. Her soft breasts against his back, her legs bracketed against his, one hooking over his hip. Her arm drapes over him, clutching him close, and her face presses into the nape of his neck.

Here, in the privacy of his own space, away from her knowing gaze, tears slip silently from his eyes. At the realization that nothing has changed. At the anger of what a mistake he made, coming here. At the frustration that he never would have made it through this evening without her.

All he's ever wanted is to be enough. To be functioning, maybe even happy, without it impinging on what someone else thinks of him. And yet he's never managed it, only transferred the desperation for approval from person to person, and she's his latest unwitting victim.

He had hoped by pushing her away he might be able to learn not to care. But instead, it's only made him more desperate.

His tears finally flow more slowly, and he takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes and focuses all his attention on his arm around her. And for tonight, at least, it feels like enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shut UP, Tillie.


	18. No Stranger

Ben wakes at three in the morning, according to the glowing green alarm clock letters on his desk. A slender arm is draped over his torso.

He replays his vow to start telling her the truth. 

He swallows hard, thinking of all the things she'll hear from him. Thinking of the chance: the high, high chance, that she won't look at him the same after. 

He's afraid reality will ruin the promise of what they could be. He's afraid honesty will rob them of any chance to be something good.

It's why he pushed her away for so long.

Yet even with the way he's treated her, she never walked away. Because it allowed them to live in the fantasy that if they were just nicer to each other, then it would all work out. Nothing else would stand in their way.

The purity of the promise was better than the risk of a disappointing truth.

Now, faced with the looming specter of imperfect reality, Ben is terrified. 

But as he stares at Rey's slack sleeping face, as he thinks of the way she protected him when Luke showed up, as he remembers pulling her, sobbing, off the floor of her storage closet, he's not content to live with the promise of something anymore. 

He wants this to be real. He wants it to be good. So he spends the next hour in the close, stuffy darkness convincing himself that if he starts telling the truth, it doesn't mean he's going to lose her.

\--------

He wakes to a soft sound he can't identify. He spends a few minutes, eyes still shut, attempting to place it. He registers the feeling of his worn flannel sheets from home. When the bed shifts next to him, his eyes fly open.

Most of his field of vision is taken up by the sight of a tan, stubbly thigh.

Oh, right. It's the day after Thanksgiving. They're in his bed, at his parents' house. After he had a screaming match downstairs and then they got drunk in the backyard.

That sound turns out to be Rey, chewing.

She's got a sandwich bigger than her own head on one of Leia's good china plates, which is balanced on her folded legs.

"Where'd you get that?" He says, voice thick and rough with sleep.

"Made it," she says, muffled around a mouth full of food, and takes a moment to swallow. "I'm not usually around for leftovers, so I figured I should take advantage while I could." 

Ben sits up, and the aftermath of the whiskey immediately makes itself known. He groans, but before he can utter a complaint he sees the glass of water and two Tylenol on his bedside table. He meets Rey's eye with a grateful glance, then downs every last drop and pops the pills.

The clock informs him it's just before eight in the morning. "I've got to be back at the parlor in three hours," Rey says softly, before taking another massive bite.

"Anyone else awake when you were down there?" 

Rey shakes her head. "Chewie's still on the couch, snoring."

Ben huffs a small laugh and Rey grins. "We can leave soon." She nods and polishes off the final bite of one half of the sandwich, then proffers the plate. 

"Eat that, then get dressed. I'm gonna go poach more leftovers from downstairs and then we'll go."

He nods and takes a giant bite of his own, only to groan at the symphony of flavors that meet his tongue, all wrapped in fluffy brioche. 

"See! At least you like_ something_ I made." Rey teases.

"Hey, your ice cream last night was good, and I told you as much." 

"'_It's good.'_ Wow. Such praise!" She rolls her eyes, but her words carry the hiccup of laughter.

"Hard to know how to give praise when you never had a chance to receive it." 

He immediately regrets sobering the moment. The mischief fades from her face, as does her small grin. 

Is this what it's going to be like, now that he's given himself permission to tell her the truth? Are dark, ugly shards of his past just going to spill out of him at the worst possible times?

No. He has to do this right. 

"I'm sorry. Sometimes my attempts at self-deprecation just end up being..."

"Really sad," Rey supplies, and he nods.

He expects her to get up out of bed, uncomfortable, and walk away. Or mumble something else about the leftovers again, or otherwise change the subject.

Instead she reaches out and swipes something off the corner of his mouth with her thumb, then lets her other fingers linger there, brushing over his jaw. "You don't have to hide that from me." She mutters softly. "I'm no stranger to 'really sad.'"

He just nods at her, wanting to say thank you, but the words don't feel right, so he just glances down at his food and takes another bite. 

She rises and pulls her pants on, swaps out his old t-shirt for her blouse again. Without another word she slips silently out the door, and Ben sits there. His thoughts threaten to consume him, to build another wordless emotional wall between them that's impossible to surmount. 

Instead he keeps eating, and each time the wall creeps back up, he dismantles it, stone by stone.

\-------

Rey's got three big Tupperwares stacked on her lap while she and Ben drive back. They have enough time that she's asked him to head for her apartment instead of straight to Irresistible. He's got some soft folk rock playlist on, turned so low she can barely make out the words, and the day is overcast, just like the one previous. The light's barely changed since when they first woke up.

Ben's seemed weird since they first woke up, too. He's got this wide-eyed look on his face, half-shocked and half-nervous, and Rey keeps wanting to ask him about it. But she's already asked so much of him, already made it clear that she expects him to tell her...well basically everything, about why the hell things are so tense with his family, about everything that's happened to him. About why he's like this. 

She believes that he'll do it. He'll do it on his own time, which she has to respect. 

She can't go around asking for an explanation each time he makes an odd comment or a funny facial expression. One day she'll understand. 

But she has to be patient in waiting for that day.

So when he slides a hand across the console and lays it gently on her knee, slightly stricken expression still firmly in place, she just sets her free hand on top of his, and asks nothing.

When Ben pulls into the graveled space next to her stairs, the fronds of the yucca tree brushing his roof, his hand tightens on her knee a little. They breeze stirs the branches around them.

"You going to First Order? Got stuff to do?"

"Yep," he says on a sigh.

She sits with that for a moment, then decides to say it. "No offense, but you look and smell like someone who spent most of yesterday either sweating nervously or drunk off whiskey."

A startled laugh coughs out of him, but Rey just grins at him again and jerks her head towards her apartment. He follows her up, Beebee headbutting his shins as soon as they are in the door.

He asks Rey's permission, then fills the cat bowl with food and tops off her water.

Rey turns the shower on to let it warm up, then stands in the bathroom doorway, waiting for Ben to look back at her. He closes the cabinet and finally does, so she jerks her head to one side again, only this time, it directly precedes lifting her shirt off. 

He watches her quietly as she sheds the rest of her clothes, but still doesn't seem to be getting the message. Now naked, she flicks her head one last time, then turns and steps into the shower. 

Finally, he leaves his clothes somewhere out there and follows her in. 

The shower-tub combo dominates her tiny bathroom, but it affords them enough space to breathe as she scrubs coconut papaya shampoo over his hair, leaving him to finish the job as she takes to her own with a wide tooth comb. It's not sexual, but not clinical either. 

It's intimate in a casual way that continually surprises her. The brush of her hip against his, or the steadying touch of his hand on her back as he reaches past her to make the water just a tad cooler. 

Plenty of Rey's firsts in life came and went long before Ben. But this, the domestic ease of being in another person's presence without their presence being the purpose of the moment, this is definitely the first time that's ever happened to her.

She likes it. 

She pulls a black button up from a pile of clothing on her bed. "Here. You left it, one time."

He reaches out to take it, brow furrowed. She chooses not to mention that she noticed he'd left it as he was walking out the door that night and didn't say anything to him

It smelled like him. Beebee liked to take naps on top of it. Thankfully, Rey had washed it since then, so the slowly thickening layer of orange fur was gone. 

He slides it on and begins buttoning it, and Rey tries not to watch the muscles in his forearms shift, or notice the way the anxious shock has finally melted away from his face.

She pulls jeans and an old, comfortable purple shirt from her drawers and dresses in the quiet. She's relieved she can hear the tide again. The faithful sign that she's home.

She's just about to step out the door when Ben stops her with a hand on her waist.

Before she can move, he whispers to her, "Hold still."   
  
He tucks the tag into the collar of her shirt, then after a moment, presses a kiss to the back of her neck. His stubble rasps against her skin as he pulls away, and she leans back into him for a moment, feeling the length and solidity of his body. "It's almost eleven," he murmurs, and she nods, continuing forward.

\-------

The entire seven hours of her shift, Rey feels antsy. Her skin buzzes with anticipation. But what exactly she's awaiting, she can't explain.

After the third or fourth glance Ben shoots at her through the communal window, it hits her.

Him. She's anticipating him. Ben unfiltered, the person that she's been trying to drag out since that first night they kissed in the office. The honesty she's been waiting for all this time.

When she turns off the neon pink "OPEN" sign at precisely 6:01 PM, she can hear him coming in through the kitchen door. 

"I heated up the leftovers." He enters through the swinging door to the parlor.

They eat sitting at one of her two-seater tables, in silence. She props open a window and counts the waves. She keeps wondering which question to ask, which hint to drop, so that he'll start talking.

_He only just agreed last night._

_It's been less than twenty-four hours since you even discussed this. _

_The fastest way to shut it all down is to push him._

So instead she asks him what he got up to at the distillery. 

He prattles on about the stills; crunching a bunch of data about trivia night to prove to Snoke it's profitable, soliciting local artists to design a few labels for their newest releases.

But he seems to be on the same wavelength as her. Darting short glances right into her eyes before staring back at his food.

After they're done eating, and are quietly sipping hot toddies he brings from his kitchen, it happens.

Rey shifts her foot under the little pink table, and the outside of her knee bumps against the inside of his. 

She goes to move, expecting him to shift away, but instead he presses his leg into hers. She looks at him, and his gaze isn't darting around anymore. One hand is half covering his mouth.

"I think," he says softly, then clears his throat hard, even though he isn't the slightest bit hoarse, "I think that if we do this, I might need you to be the one to start the...talking. I don't know how to begin."

Rey stares at him a moment longer, then nods. 

She has no idea where to begin either. 

\-------

Rey nods at him gently, a small, capable smile on her face. But Ben sees the way her eyes flicker, and he realizes it may not be fair of him, to expect her to mediate this. He wants to apologize, to tell her she doesn't have to, but he knows, for infinite reasons, that if he just starts talking, he'll utterly fuck it up. He expects she can do a little better than that.

What he doesn't expect is the question that finally comes out of her mouth.

"What do you do for fun?"

He blinks. "Fun?"

She nods, gaze steady, and yes, okay, that clearly was what she really said. "Yeah, for fun. Hobbies, interests. That sort of thing."

"I uh," he pulls a hand through his hair, "well you obviously know I surf." She nods. "And you know I like dark comedies. I go to concerts. I like indie rock, and some of the screamo I listened to in high school still holds up." She snorts and rolls her eyes, and Ben feels his shoulders relax a little. "For a long time, whiskey stuff was my hobby until it became my job. And I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, before things really ramped up here."

"Animal shelter?" She sounds surprised.

"Yeah." He nods.

"Why?"

"Because with shelter animals...you earn their trust." He says quickly. "If you want their trust, they show you how to earn it. With affection, or with allowing them distance. You know what you need to do. And you can either take that or leave it."

She stares at him for a long time. 

"You got a preference, species-wise? Cats? Dogs? Rodents?"

"Cats, no contest."

She's smirking now. "Beebee can certainly attest to the veracity of that statement."

"My own cat could too."

"You have one?"

"Yeah. Star. All black, with these nice green eyes."

"Did you adopt Star from that shelter?"

"No," Ben says, and pauses for a moment, grinning at the memory. "No I found her on the beach during my first year in college. I was just learning to surf, and there she was on the beach one morning, half starving and all matted with sand. I asked somebody about her and they said she'd been hanging around there for months, eating scraps and seaweed to survive. One morning we caught her gnawing on a starfish that had washed up, and some long haired dude, baked out of his mind, named her Starkiller." 

Rey's outright laughing now, and repeats incredulously, "_Starkiller?!_"

"Ridiculous, I know. So I started bringing cans of Fancy Feast on my beach trips, positioning them closer and closer to my car until I could get her to climb in one day. Got pretty scratched up giving her a bath when I finally got her home, though."

"Was it worth it?" Rey says, between waning giggles. 

"Absolutely. She's my best friend."

"I promise not to tell Hux you said that."

"He wouldn't be offended. His best friend is Phaz."

Rey grins at that, and she's quiet for a moment. "They've certainly given all of us something to strive for in the marriage department, haven't they?"

Ben nods, and he gets this feeling almost like recklessness, voicing his unadulterated thoughts. _Is this what honesty feels like?_ "I know my own relationships will never measure up to what they have. Each of them with their families, or what they have between each other."

"What makes you say that?"

_That_ wasn't honesty. _This_ is it. This is that moment, the one he's had with her before, where he accidentally admits something deep and raw and true and now she's asked for more, for a follow up, for some explanation he never felt ready to give.

But he doesn't get to feel un-ready anymore. 

"I just..." He begins, and shifts in his seat. Rey responds by pressing her leg harder against his knee under the table, as he did to her. 

It grounds him, and he takes a breath, "Armitage has so many qualities under the surface that you haven't seen. Qualities that I think lead him to successful relationships."

"Like what?" She presses. 

"Like, a lack of insecurity," he grasps for the words, "so, _security_, I guess. Security in who he is, and what he does. So then when someone points out something he's done wrong, he isn't defensive or unwilling to listen. He's secure in what he did before, even if it led to a mistake. I...don't have that."

Rey opens her mouth.

But Ben isn't done.

Not by a long shot.

"And his family. They're very...stable. They've had arguments, of course, and I imagine there's probably plenty of shit I don't know about despite the fact that he and I are close, but still." He turns his head, looks out at the dark beach, and his voice hardens. "They have this basis, this foundation I guess, that's built on how much they care about each other. It's like they can be honest with each other, tell each other the whole truth, and not fear that the person is going to hate them by the end of it. I don't know what else to call it, but it's like unconditional love." 

Rey nods in agreement, and her eyes dart down to where she's poking at the remaining sweet potatoes on her plate. "I wouldn't know anything about that."

Her eyes dart briefly up to see why he's silent. His voice is softer. "Don't take this the wrong way, but that doesn't surprise me." 

"What, I just seem unlovable?" She says, with a hard bark of laughter Ben knows is fake. He keeps staring at her, sees right through the eye-roll she forces out. Her shoulders jump for a second, in an anxious attempt at a joking shrug. 

"No." He says immediately, gravely. "You seem hungry for something. A connection. An assurance of your value."

She keeps fidgeting with her fork petulant. "These discussions aren't supposed to be about me." 

"I get the feeling they'll end up being about both of us, Rey." He sighs. "And besides, are you really so afraid of what I might think if you're honest with me in return?"

She licks her lips. "It's like you said about Hux's family. I don't feel like I can be honest with you without taking the risk that you won't like me by the end."

He stares at her for another long moment. At the melange of self-protection and vulnerability that swirls all over her. It doesn't put him off. 

If anything, it's part of what draws him closer.

"I can't give you unconditional love, because that's not exactly what I feel, but," he straightens in his seat, "I can give unconditional...something."

Her eyes flick up and meet his own, head on. 

"No matter what you say, Rey, I'm not going anywhere. Just like I wasn't when I found you in the kitchen yesterday."

She blinks at him, processing, and then some of the tension eases from her face. "God, was that only yesterday?"

"I know." 

"Feels like a lifetime ago."

He takes a deep breath, and something compels him to reiterate, again. "I'm here Rey. We both are."

Suddenly, the words burst forth from her.

"I stole things. Food, clothes. Just to get myself through my teens without starving or freezing. I lied and manipulated people to protect myself. When I turned thirteen I had to learn to dodge a punch, and how to throw one. I _had to. _I barely finished high school. I'm not worldly, or cultured, or interesting. All I've ever done is fight, in one way or another."

Ben thinks of his mother. Of her words, so similar, about Rey only knowing how to fight. 

"I never want to fight with you again." His words sound as weary as his mind feels.

"I can't guarantee that." Rey warns, and there it is: total honesty.

"I know." He nods. "But I think it's unlikely, if we both really try." 

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Yes."

"Why'd you decide to go to Thanksgiving?" He's quiet, so she goes on, "Why now? Why this year?"

"They called me." He says, and her face pinches in confusion. "My parents both called me, separately. And without really telling one another, if my suspicions are correct. They both talked a lot about why they missed me. How desperate they were for things to get better. Maybe it was a mistake, but it worked."

"Why did they call in the first place? Why now?"

"My dad called because of my mom's spying, but my mom called...well she called because of you."

"Because of _me_?" She points a thin, incredulous finger at her own chest.

"Yeah. To warn me off of involving you, after I caught her here. She didn't want you to be part of it." He crosses his arms. "_She_ never should have involved you in the first place."

"She was desperate to see you." 

"Plenty of people are desperate for a lot of things." He deflects.

"I would do anything to see my parents again." Rey says suddenly, her voice too loud for the close, quiet dark, and he almost jumps. "Even if they didn't want to see me, I would find a way to sneak a glance. To be a fly on the wall for a moment. You're the one who walked away, Ben. You're the one who walked away, not the one who got deserted. And as the one who got left alone, I get it. I get why she did it. I'm not saying it was okay, but I get it." 

"The problem is," he says, and in spite of all his hardest efforts, he feels his hackles rising, "you don't know what I was walking away from."

She lets that statement linger in the air for a moment, then nods, tilts her head, and he knows she's conceding to his point. 

"So tell me." 

And despite every instinct that tells him not to, Ben clings onto that unconditional something. And piece by piece, over the course of many days, he tells her.

\-------

He tells her about what his dad said, that he and his mom were ready to raise a child, but not at all ready to raise anything else.

Not an eleven year old, awkward and gangly, constantly seeking a place where he fit in. Not a teenager, a burgeoning adult with an independent streak and a craving for solitude neither of them could understand. He tells her about the turning point, about the shift change where suddenly his parents started to lose some of their superhuman shine and began looking like ordinary, fallible, disappointing people. 

He tells her how he slowly grew to crave their approval, to make a funny joke or memorize a recipe his mom liked, just so she would witness him make it from memory. The way that they always had constructive criticism, a way for him to improve, but the feedback was never prefaced, nor was it summed, with a compliment. In their minds, he knew what he had done well so they didn't mention that. They only restated what he needed to do better.

Naturally, the things he'd done wrong became his focus. And it grew and it morphed into a terrible beast of burden until its shadow fell over everything he did. Until it was like he couldn't tie his shoes without a suggestion from Han or Leia. Or if they were absent, their voices in his head, so clear and predictable, gently but firmly swinging the spotlight to what was wrong. What was insufficient. 

Luke had been around all along, a vague figure in the background of neighborhood parties and family gatherings, but when Ben was fourteen and his parents suggested a part-time job with Luke might do him some good, it felt like a chance. A chance to start over with someone new, a chance to impress someone whose opinion of him wasn't colored by years of witnessing his cumulative failings.

And the first few months were good, imbued with Ben's hope.

But Luke was a restaurant owner. And a strange one at that, always going on about the _mission statement_ of his latest cafe, or the _energy_ of the space, and it made things harder for Ben. It made it hard for him to want to earn the respect of someone who at times was so serious but seemed so ridiculous. Ben's practicality came up against Luke's philosophical idealism, and it was not a pretty match.

Luke Skywalker may have been revered in the food and wine industry, but he was a shit uncle. He was pleasant, if distant, when Ben first started working for him. But then things got worse at home, and Ben started rebelling more, and eventually, it was decided he was better off living with Luke, too. The perennial bachelor lived in a huge house in Takodana City and regularly sheltered the promising culinary talents who did a stint in one of his restaurants, which meant there were always other people around. 

People with whom Ben, unexpectedly, had to compete. 

All those years living at home with Han and Leia, the only person in competition with him was himself. Some idealized version of Ben whom his parents were sure he could become, if only they "encouraged" him in the right ways. Or, more commonly, Leia encouraged, and Han tacitly went along with it. 

He thought when he moved out of their house, he had moved away from the constant rat race of trying to be better. He was wrong.

Now, he was up against pastry chefs and entremetiers and the occasional line cook, all of whom were determined to earn his uncle's favor and get their shot in an incredibly cutthroat industry.

It made Ben feel almost as bad as he had before, at home. Almost.

That was when Snoke started hanging around. Smoking in the parking lot behind Luke's restaurant, a long, thin cigarette held in his weathered hand, offering the pack and a lighter to Ben during his breaks. He was a bit of a restaurateur himself though his career was built in real estate, he told Ben, even though Ben never asked. 

Then one night Snoke was in the back, there to offer Ben a cigarette and stand quietly while Ben ranted about the complexity of the duck confit Luke had him making that night, how in all the trial runs Luke kept insisting the skin wasn't browned quite right, even though Ben knew it was perfect. 

Soon his break was over, and Snoke drifted away, like he always did.

Only this time, he didn't drift far. This time, he walked around to the front of house and asked for a table, for one. 

He ordered the duck. 

He made a small spectacle of asking to speak to Luke. Ben watched, over the three-fourths high wall that cordoned off the kitchen, as he complimented the dish. As he asked Luke to pass his praise onto whatever members of the kitchen staff helped make it. As he rose from the table and made to leave, Snoke leveled his gaze right on Ben and offered a conspiratorial nod.

Luke congratulated every member of the team but him. 

When the sous chef pointed that out, Luke slung a kitchen towel into the waist tie of his apron and muttered, "The kid's mother is Leia Organa, he doesn't need any more fuel for building an ego." A few people grin or chuckle, then return to the next day's prep.

Luke completely missed the flash of hurt and rage that alighted on Ben's face.

\-------

"So it went on like that for a while," Ben says, his voice carried on the night air as he and Rey bike through Eagle Canyon. He leans back, balancing without the handlebars, while Rey leans her elbows onto the wrapped handles of her ancient road bike. 

"Like how?" She asks, turning her head briefly away from the dark, suburban road to look at him. 

Normally, when there aren't other things demanding their attention, their eyes are on each other so much. It's almost strange to Ben, to be speaking to her without staring at her. He has to try harder to put the truth into his words, because Rey can't read the truth in his eyes and his hands and their movements anymore. 

It surprises him, the realization that now he _likes_ being scrutinized so closely.

"He kept showing up there. Snoke. He'd ask me what I'd made, he'd go in that night, or maybe the next, and try it. He always had something nice to say." He risks another glance away from the road and towards her, and she sees the movement and meets his eye. "I know now what a monster he is, Rey. But back then he was...he was the only one who made me feel like my ideas were worth anything. He became the voice in my head."

Her gaze darts away as she dips her bike closer to his, navigating around an especially large patch of leaves in the gutter. 

She's quiet for a long time. Normally she asks questions, she guides him to what he should say. But now, nothing. So he just waits. 

"I can understand. Why you would want to be around someone who made you feel that way."

It's so soft her words are nearly lost to the wind. But Ben strains his ears and picks it up.

He hears what's underneath it, too. 

"If you'd had someone like that, you would have fallen for it too," he verbalizes, though it stings right after, and he isn't sure it needed to be said.

She nods, quick and jerky. 

When they make it to the top of the bluff at the edge of the canyon, Rey flips her hood up and stares out at the lights of the city. She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs, content to sit near him in the quiet, but then she shivers, a little burst of tremors from head to toe. 

Ben hesitates for a moment, but another small gust blows across them, so he does it.

He slides over in the sandy dirt, positioning himself just behind her, and places his legs outside hers. He reaches for one shoulder and eases her backwards, until her spine is pressed to his chest, and he watches in his periphery as she tilts her head against his shoulder, looking up at him. 

She must find whatever she's looking for as she stares, because she says nothing. Soon, she's looking back out at the lights.

"I had hoped," he starts haltingly, then swallows, working his jaw for a moment, "I had hoped that when I started being more honest, that you might too."

"I was." She looks up at him again, "That night, the day after Thanksgiving. I told you some stuff."

"I know. But you haven't said anything else, since then. You've been a great listener, but I've done almost all the talking. I want...more. Tell me what your childhood was like. Or other stuff, it doesn't all have to be serious stuff. Tell me about how your day went, or what new movie you loved, or about someone at the store who annoyed you." His eyes stay trained on the horizon. "I feel like I know all these random, disparate parts of you, but I need to...fill in the gaps, I guess. I want the whole picture."

"The whole picture."

"The whole person," he clarifies, and she shifts a little. The movement presses her backside a little closer against his hips. 

They haven't had sex since before Thanksgiving. Ben's aware how backwards this is: The incredibly deep carnal relationship isn't the part that's meant to come first. Their whole _thing _has been pretty backwards.

He'll take it anyway.

"Well," Rey begins, then trails off. She tucks her head more firmly against his chest and he leans his chin down on her head, catching a whiff of cheap cherry blossom fabric softener off her sweatshirt. "My childhood sucked, I guess. I think I slowly stopped being a kid the day my mother left. From then on, there was always either something I was fighting for, or something I was...protecting myself against."

His arms tighten around her. 

"The first time I really felt _young_ was when I became friends with Finn." She says, her voice growing faraway, and Ben can see it, a rail-thin Rey at thirteen, Finn's goofy grin on a face a year younger. "He had this way of talking to me, that made me forget the rest of the world existed. He's good at that, building little worlds of his own." 

"You guys ended up at the same high school?"

"Yeah. I got to see him every day, instead of only at those foster kid socials." Her voice roughens. "I never would have made it to graduation if not for him."

"What makes you say that?"

"I was already with Plutt by then." 

Ben doesn't know what that means. But the same way he did earlier on his bike, he just waits. 

"He was the last one who had me, before I turned eighteen. The same time Finn got adopted, I got placed with him."

"What was it like?"

"It was okay, at first. He drank a lot, took pills too, but that didn't really affect me. It was decent when I was too young to do much real labor for him." Her shoulders shrug against Ben's body. "But the year I turned fifteen he made me apply for a work permit through the city, and then he had me in the truck, starting on the first hot day of the year."

"In the truck?

"An ice cream van, really."

"Ice cream?" Ben can't hide his shock.

"Yeah, but nothing like what I do now," she says, and waves away any possible comparison with her hand, "I was shilling Cornetto cones and Rocket Pops for two dollars a piece outside water parks." 

"How was that?"

"I'll never get that tinny rendition of _Pop Goes the Weasel_ out of my head." 

Ben laughs unexpectedly, his face breaking into a wide grin, and he soaks in the levity before it inevitably grows serious again.

"It was really intense. It wasn't like, a few hours a day. He had me up at dawn, restocking the trucks or breaking down boxes, and then I was out til well after the sun went down. When he figured out I was good at math, he had me doing some of the bookkeeping too. He had a million businesses. A crap metal yard. Part-ownership of a shitty catering company. A lot of numbers to keep track of. He would hide my backpack and refuse to let me have my schoolwork until I finished his stuff first."

"Jesus, Rey." 

"And when you're a foster kid, all it takes is one slip with grades, and then every work assistance program, every adult transition opportunity and special scholarship, it all goes right out the door. They're waiting for you to fuck up, because there are fifty other kids who didn't, all desperate for help, and eliminating one more candidate makes their job the tiniest bit easier. So I had no choice. I did Plutt's work, however long it took, and then I did my own."

Ben thinks back to his mother, insisting as he got dropped off at Luke's house, "_Look it's fine if you have him working part time in the kitchen, but I want him in bed before midnight every night. Sleep is really important in adolescence, and I won't let you fuck that up just because you think he'll be the next Alex Atala." _

Ben's teenage years were incredibly difficult, for a number of reasons. But he always had time to do his schoolwork. He always got enough sleep. 

"There were times when-" Her voice quivers, and Ben reaches blindly for her hand, cradling the back of it with his own, the same as how he cradles her body. He threads their fingers and holds on, just tightly enough. "Sometimes he would send me out for the day, and halfway through I would get a text that said he didn't want me to come back until I sold out."

"If it was a cold night, or the water park was running a deal on sundaes, or if it was just a slow day....I would get back, and he would check the van. He would see there was still some stuff left, and he would say, 'I told you not to come back.'"

Ben clenches his jaw, so hard his molars start to ache. "And you would sleep out there?"

She nods, his chin shifting along with her head, and in that moment, Ben's grateful she can't see him. He imagines the blind seething anger on his face is pretty unattractive. 

"Rey, I-" 

"Like I said to you before. I stole. I stole tampons from the school nurse's office. I would steal my friends leftover food of their plates as a joke during lunch, then right before we had to go back to class, I would turn in my lunch ticket and put my own food in a tupperware so I could save it for later." She's speaking so fast Ben can barely understand her, and there's the thickness of tears in her voice. " Finn's adopted sister asked me to help her sort through her closet, and then I took a pair of shoes she was getting rid of, because mine were so worn out I could feel the texture of the pavement through them."

"Re-"

"I'm ashamed of what I did. I am...so embarrassed about all the stuff I had to do. And even though I know I don't ever have to talk about this stuff, I just want to stop feeling like trash, when I know all I was doing was trying to survive. I want to talk about it until it doesn't make me _feel like this_ anymore."

Ben leans down and nudges her hood, until it's pulled back enough that his lips graze her ear. He presses a light kiss there, and waits a moment for her breathing to slow, then whispers, "You can tell me every fucking detail. You can tell me everything, if you want. You could tell me each bad thing you did to keep yourself safe or to protect yourself. But Rey," he shifts then, tilts around so that his dark, dry eyes can meet her wet ones, "No matter what you tell me, I will never be ashamed of you."

It's then that his lip trembles. His eyes become a little less dry and resolute. Rey's brow pinches, and her hand comes up to trace his cheekbone, as he mutters, "If anything, hearing what you went through only makes me more ashamed of myself."

"What do you mean?"

"I had no reason to be so angry at the world. No reason to act the way I do. You were somewhere out there struggling to feed yourself, while someone was getting paid who was supposed to be taking care of you. I was going to bed every night with a full stomach and a family that looked out for me. They might have been shitty, but they always wanted me to be safe, and healthy. But for other reasons, lesser reasons, I pushed that all away. I had no right to." His voice turns impossibly more bitter. "I should have been grateful."

"No." Rey says, and the steeliness in her voice is enough to draw Ben's gaze back to her.

"No?"

"No. The pain in my life doesn't... make yours any less real." 

"But if you compare our situatio-"

"I don't want to compare. I don't think that's helpful. I think we each got the lives we got, and based on what we experienced, that set up our measure of what was painful. What was wrong, what made us feel unloved." 

He swallows against the rapidly developing lump in his throat.

"That's the part that you and I have most in common, Ben." Her voice grows hushed, and her fingertips trace his eyebrow, so delicately. "Feeling unloved." 

Ben swallows again, this time to tamp down the roil of nerves in his stomach, and does what he does now. He speaks honestly.

"I think I could love you." 

He hears her gasp, and feels the expansion in her chest. "You do?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"This. No longer hiding all the shit we are both so desperate to hide. Realizing we're both here to stay. I think once we understand each other...then it has the chance to lead to something more."

She bites her lip, and Ben traces one of the tears that spills out of the corner of her eye. "_Something more_." She exhales, shakily. "I always thought I was too fucked up for something like this to happen to me."

Ben takes a tremulous breath. "A man just as emotionally warped as you. Think maybe- think maybe you could learn to love him too?"

She turns enough to lay a tiny kiss on his jaw. "I think I could." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What song did your local ice cream truck play? Mine was either Pop Goes the Weasel or Do Your Ears Hang Low. 
> 
> I haven't heard/seen one in nearly fifteen years, weirdly.


	19. Figuring It Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends :)
> 
> I am not managing my time well. If anyone has any tips on how to stay productive during this interminable quarantine, I would love to hear about it. 
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!

She finally sees where he lives.

Rey always pictured Ben in some cold, modern apartment. Maybe in a high rise in downtown Takodana City.

She knows he wears flannels and drives an ancient, rattling SUV, but with his "furious Wall Street bro" energy, she pictured his living space as being commensurate with that.

Instead she stares in surprise, as they pull up in front of a tiny gray clapboard house. It's got a narrow, slightly barren yard, the grass covered in a thick blanket of cedar needles from the towering trees that hem the property.

He parks in the little driveway, the house to their left, and looks at her nervously. "It's cute," she says, with a small, reassuring smile, and Ben tries to hide his answering grin as he turns to get out.

When they enter there's a sleek black cat sitting on top of the fridge, and it takes a moment of coaxing from Ben to draw her closer to the edge. He picks her up, folding her against his chest, then approaches Rey. 

She holds her hand out, and Star takes a prolonged moment to sniff every angle of her fingers and palm. "She might not warm up to you as fast as Beebee did to me." Ben says honestly, and Rey nods, giving Star the tiniest pet on the top of her head before Ben lowers her to the floor. She scampers off, parkour-ing from the trash can to the counter, to the stove and back onto the fridge, where she stands like a sentinel, watching over the house.

Rey glances through the sliding glass door at his beautiful, weathered brick flowerbeds. They're terraced in groups of three, and completely empty. "You gotta get something in those, man. They're too amazing to be left empty."

He's silent, and she turns to find him leaning against the counter, arms crossed.

"Tell you what..if this..._thing_ with us keeps on going and we haven't regressed to murdering each other by spring, I'll take you to Home Depot and you can plant whatever you want back there."

She stares at him and digests that promise: the realization that he hopes they will still be like this, four months from now. 

It feels good.

"Tomatoes?"

"Sure."

"Lettuce?"

"Absolutely. I love salad."

"Zucchini?"

"Sure, but be careful. Han had a zucchini plant when I was a kid, and the very first one got buried in the soil and you couldn't see it. It got so big it demanded all the water and nutrients from the whole plant." Rey starts to giggle. "The plant started failing and no matter what Han did, he couldn't revive it. Once it was dead we dug it up, and found out we had one vegetable the size of a baseball bat."

By now she's doubled over, picturing Ben's gruff dad even more disgruntled than usual, muttering as he pokes around the brown, wilted leaves of the plant. "How pissed did he get?"

"I would bet a lot of money he still has nightmares about it."

"Ones where he wakes up in bed and instead of Leia lying next to him, it's the human-sized zucchini."

"He got so angry he wanted to just throw it away. Chewie tried to convince him to enter it into a contest at the State Fair."

"What did they end up doing with it?"

"My mom pureed it into a cold summer soup that she served at Trilogy. Once word got around, it became kind of a fun mystery for the customers, whether you just got the zucchini soup, or you got soup made from _The Zucchini._" 

"How old were you when that happened?"

"Hm. Ten, maybe?"

They look at each other for a long moment. 

"Garden gnomes?"

"What?"

Rey thumbs over her shoulder. "Can we put some garden gnomes back there?"

"Absolutely not." He decrees, immediately.

"You said I could pick anything I wanted." 

"Yeah, anything that grows."

Rey pouts her lower lip. "You didn't make that stipulation beforehand."

"Well I'm making it now. It's my garden and I'm allowed to stipulate."

"I'd like you to _stipulate_ me..."

"Jesus."

It's become one of their most enduring jokes, Rey taking an obscure word and turning it into blatant innuendo. It's led to such gems as, _I'd like to test your cask strength,_ and _Why don't you show me your malted milk balls?_

She regrets nothing.

"No gnomes." Ben insists, shaking his head for emphasis.

"Fine, compromise. A birdbath."

"Wha-" He begins, and Rey laughs loudly at the incredulous look on his face. "Plants, Rey," his voice quivers on a chuckle, "just plants. God, first the gnomes and now you're inviting animals to my home? Are you trying to turn me into Snow White?"

She presses her lips together. "Well. You do have the raven locks, and the skin as white and fresh as newly fallen snow." 

He stalks towards her, and she presses herself back against the glass. "But am I the fairest of them all?"

She grins and tilts her head back, allowing him to cradle her face between his hands. "I mean, I may be a little biased, but my answer is yes."

"Biased how?" He leans down to press his face into her neck.

"I'm rather attracted to you."

His head darts up. "Wait, you're attracted to me?" His eyes go wide.

"You couldn't tell by all those times I literally fucked you?"

"Oh. Yeah. I'm a little clueless. I don't really pick up on those subtleties." He only makes it halfway through before he starts laughing.

Rey looks up at him. At the ease in his posture and the bright, goofy look on his face. The way he's let his beard start growing out. The way all his movements have slowed just a fraction, no longer accelerated by constant, extreme tension. 

He grips her by the ass and lifts her up, aligning their bodies so it's easier for him to press his face into her collarbone again.

"So do you like, _like like_ me?" He says, muffled against her skin, and she wonders if he feels the vibrations when she laughs. 

"Dunno yet. Depends on whether you ask me to prom."

"Oh shit, the pressure's on." She feels the rasp of his facial hair as his smile stretches wider.

"Did high school Ben go to prom?"

He pulls back just enough to look at her, his eyes a little sad. "He did not. He had a terrible haircut and was still wearing Axe body spray, so everyone at prom was probably better off without him there." 

Rey shrugs. "He looks really good in black, though. Tux would've looked amazing."

She meets his gaze, and wonders if he can sense what she's doing. That she's trying to give him a silver lining. 

"You seen him in a tux?" He asks, and the mirth returns to his expression.

"Not high school Ben, but the current version, yeah." Her mind drifts back to the wedding. It feels like a lifetime ago.

"And?"

"When that man is in a tux, he is most definitely the fairest. Eat your heart out, princesses."

Rey thinks of the first time they were ever like this: the day they argued on the stairs when he was meant to go surfing. She remembers his maniacal muffled screams into the pillow as she yanked off his wetsuit, tears streaming from her eyes as he begged for mercy.

Memories are strange things. She'll never get over how their entire history as people is what led them to this moment, and yet this moment is the only one that feels real. That day in her apartment feels more like a file loaded into her brain than a series of hours that really took place. That were once as real as this moment is now.

She blinks when Ben pulls her away from the wall, perching her on the kitchen counter. He gives her a handful of treats to toss across the room to Star and he turns away to start making lunch, humming some alternative rock song that definitely would have played that night, if he had gone to prom.

\-------

Some days, though, Ben is completely and absolutely the same man she first met. 

Like on a windy Tuesday, sitting in his kitchen, petting Star until he slides a plate full of steaming scrambled eggs and pancakes in front of her. Star immediately cranes towards the food but Rey just sets her gently on the ground, listening to Ben snort as she oohs and aahs over the massive plate of food.

Ten minutes later her food's gone cold, not a single bite eaten, and Rey cannot, for the life of her, remember how the conversation got here.

"I just really think you're coming on too strong sometimes." Ben insists from where he towers over her, hands pressed flat against his dining room table. 

"People want to be welcomed, Ben. Friendliness is a cornerstone of my business."

"I understand that but," he huffs, exasperated, "You need to tone it down sometimes. If it's too much, then it's a gamble as to whether it's gonna keep someone coming or drive them away. And since so much of your business model is founded on repeat customers, you aren't in a position to be driving anyone away!"

"Not everyone is as much of an anti-social gremlin as you! Some people like being talked to warmly, familiarly."

"But not desperately!" Ben explodes, his huge body and equally huge voice filling the entire room, and Rey's mouth claps shut. She blinks fiercely.

"I'm not desperate." She whispers, her voice gone small and hurt. 

Ben sighs, the squareness slowly falling away from his shoulders as he slumps. He runs a hand through his hair before finally sitting opposite her. 

"Look, I never, ever want to hurt you when I'm just trying to be helpful." She looks up at him for a brief second, then back down to where she's picking at her nail polish. "Remember all those times you had the best of intentions, offering me help, and I never ever wanted to take it?"

He looks at her for a long moment and finally her head bobs in agreement. "That's how I feel right now," he mumbles, and exhales slowly, "I want to help you. I think what I have to say is important. But when you just fight back so relentlessly..." and here it is again, that scary prickle in his stomach, as he overcomes the mental and physical instinct not to be honest, "when all you do is refute me, it makes me angry, and I end up saying things I didn't mean. Or saying them in ways I don't mean. Angrily, or whatever." He slides his hand across the table, until his fingertips just barely touch hers. "All I'm asking is that you listen. That you take a moment to consider my words seriously. And think seriously about why I chose to say them. It's never because I'm an anti-social goblin. It's because I care about you." 

She says nothing. Doesn't even look at him. 

But she pushes her own hand further forward until their fingers are interlaced. "Gremlin."

"What?"

"I called you an anti-social gremlin, not goblin."

"Gremlin, fine. As long as it wasn't _'gnome._'" 

That, finally, draws a wisp of a smile out of her. "I still don't understand why you hate those guys."

"I don't hate them. I just vehemently feel that they do not belong in my yard." They're both quiet for a moment, then Ben shifts in his seat. "Look. It's like when you mentioned the birdbath. It's all about compromise."

She stares at him, confused. 

"This is my birdbath for this situation: I'll take one piece of professional advice you give me, and you'll take one of mine. Fair?"

She bites her lip and eventually mutters, "Okay. I accept your birdbath compromise." 

He breathes out, and levels her with a gaze. "Name your terms."

"Make the full cocktail menu available with at least one other liquor besides whiskey."

Ben is about to protest. She can see the words determined to burst forth from his lips, but he clamps them together. She thinks of all the ways he's said no to this before.

_It's a distillery. Whiskey is what we are known for. The more cocktails we offer that are rum or gin based, the more people might think we're, god forbid, a bar. I can't let that happen._

And then there were all her rebuttals. 

_It's too restrictive. You make great drinks but you're shrinking your potential customer base. Each cocktail has amazing flavors, I'm sure they would all harmonize with at least one other liquor. When in doubt, choose vodka. Hell, even Phasma doesn't drink whiskey, and she works for you!_

He rolls his lips slowly out from his mouth, then says evenly, "Fine." 

"And your advice for me?" 

"You can still say hello. You can still greet and charm. Just do so with a little less...eagerness. Don't fall at their feet. Just meet them where they stand."

Her eyes flit all over him for a moment, his mouth and his eyes and his hair. "All right. Yes."

\-------

They go to an old school Italian restaurant downtown. It's in an ancient converted house, the doors taken off the hinges to create doorways that were nonetheless never expanded, giving the whole place a cozy feel. Their tiny table is tucked into the alcove of a bay window. 

He critiques every aspect of the pizza in minute detail, while Rey listens and asks questions.

Then, he watches her in the warm red light of the candle on their table, rapt. She takes a small spoonful of the gianduja gelato and presses it to her tongue, spoon flipped upside down so the dessert hits her taste buds before the metal does. Her eyes slide shut and Ben watches her mouth work, as she breaks down all the elements, the same way he did a moment ago. The light throws her cheekbones into sharp shadow, and she's haloed by small hairs that have escaped from her bun. Her small, thick gold hoops glint as she tilts her head a little. When she opens her eyes, Ben sees her gaze widen a little as she registers the heat in his expression, the desirous way his tongue swipes at his lower lip.

They barely make it out of the restaurant and behind the concealment of a tall hedge before he's licking his way into her mouth and she's running her fingertips back and forth, maddeningly, at the edge of his waistband. 

They make out furiously for ten minutes in his car. Ben's just sliding his hands under her blouse when Rey's phone rings shrilly, breaking their horny reverie, causing Rey to let out a yelp.

She leans over from where she's perched in Ben's lap, fishing around in her purse, and answers on the final ring. "Hello?"

Ben can hear an incomprehensible female voice on the other end of the line. 

"Whoa Rose, slow down, I don't understand." 

_Blah Blah Blah._

"What happened?"

More rapid, urgent talking. Then, Rey's eyes widen. "What? No, I don't....Okay, we'll be right there."

She hangs up, and before Ben can ask, she blurts, "Something happened to one of the powerlines on Cowry Avenue. One of the circut breaker boxes is totally blown. Rose got a notification because it knocked out her seciruty cameras. All my freezers are down." 

Ben's stomach drops like a lead weight "But what about all your product for Wi-"

"For Winter Wonderland Wednesday." Her voice goes choked, "I know."

Ben practically shoves her over into the passenger seat, not even bothering to see if she's done up her seatbelt before he's turning the ignition and throwing it into drive. Rey has dozens of gallons, of brand new flavors, that simply must be frozen and ready for an event in less than twenty four hours.

They speed onto the highway in a fraught silence. "First Order is fine. Your electricity is all supplied by other box. Just my rear wall of kitchen appliances, so all the freezers plus the microwave and the dishwasher. Plus Rose's security system, half her lights, and everything in the upstairs office."

"Stupid ancient electrical wiring. That organization makes no fucking sense." Ben mutters, flipping on his blinker and merging smoothly into the fast lane.

"We still have lights, so if I can just find a way to," her voice is wild, nasal, "to keep everything cold, then we might not have to cancel, and-"

Suddenly Ben feels cold. Like a bucket of ice was dumped over him, the idea hits him so abruptly.

"Get my phone. Call my dad," He says, interrupting her, and she stops short, gaping at him for a moment.

"I...what?"

"Call Han. And put it on speaker."

He can practically feel her bewilderment radiating off of her, but she does it, and she raises the phone to his mouth just as his the call picks up. His heart is hammering like a kick drum.

"Hello?" His dad sounds even more gruff than usual. He checks his dashboard clock only to realize it's past 11 pm, and his senior-discount-eligible parents are definitely in bed. He hears his mom's raspy murmur. "Ben, is everything okay?"

"Yes dad. I promise I'm safe and everything is fine." He doesn't mean for his voice to sound annoyed and hardened, but it's difficult to help it. "But I need to know, does Lando still have that fish freezer in his hut down by Bespin Pointe?"

"I uh, I think so. He told me he hasn't been going out as often, though." 

"I'm gonna need you to call him and ask him to leave the key on his porch."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I need access to the freezer." His voice falters for a moment, on the next word, "Pl-please dad, I just need you to do that, okay?"

"Why?"

Ben wrestles with it for a moment. But just as he's done with Rey, he overcomes that strange prickle, this time igniting on the back of his neck. "Something happened at Rey's parlor. We need to rescue as much of the ice cream as we can. I need a place to take it, and that freezer is a short enough drive that I should be able to make it before things melt." There's a long silence. Ben gets impatient. "All right?"

"All right." Han finally agrees, and he hears rustling, like his dad is getting out of bed maybe. "I'll call Lando right now and text you once it's done." 

Just then, Rey sneezes, and Ben looks over at her as he takes the exit from the highway. 

_Shit._

She rubs at her nose, looking sheepish, then sneezes again.

No one could mistake the delicate sound of her bodily reactions for anything that might come out of Ben.

_Shitty fucking shit._

The silence on the line suddenly feels much, much more loaded. 

"Hi, Han." Rey squeaks awkwardly.

"Hello, dear." A distinctly not-Han voice says.

_Goddamn fucking hell. _

"Oh, hello Leia."

"Anyways dad, please text me when it's done, and include Lando's address, please. I'm not sure I have it saved."

"Will do, kid."

Ben hesitates for a moment. "Sorry I woke you guys up."

"Not a problem." Han reassures, just as Leia calls out, "Glad there's a way for us to help!"

Rey hangs up before Ben's mortification can deepen any further. He glances to his left then turns right on the red light, and they're nearly to Cowry, but not before Rey croaks:

"I'm just gonna pretend they're not sitting there discussing why we were in the car together."

A hysterical bark of laughter escapes him. "For all they know, I'm just giving you a ride down there so we can assess the situation faster."

"You drove...all the way from your house, to my apartment, which is also on Cowry Avenue, just to drive me the six blocks I easily could have sprinted faster than the time it took you to get there? You really think they'll believe that?"

"They don't know where you live." He retorts.

"Leia does!"

_Fucking shit. _

He clenches his jaw, but refuses to otherwise acknowledge that.

"Look, let's just get there and try to fix this, okay?"

Rey nods silently, and he looks over long enough to see the fear in her face. She's flipping his cell phone over and over in her hands, and her eyes are like saucers.

"Hey, we're gonna figure out out." he mutters, and slides a warm palm over her knee. "Even if we have to go to that market on Jefferson and aggregate all their frozen veggies and corn dogs into one case so there's room for your stuff."

"I highly doubt they'd let you. That lady at the counter is scary."

"I'll pay her off." 

"With what? You have like, no money."

"I'll pay her off in free alcohol," he says, and he can't help but laugh a little. "Or free dinner and a drink during trivia. Or some of those double decker coupons you gave us."

"Hey, do not abuse the sanctity of my coupons." She threatens, and Ben's just relieved to hear the tiniest bit of levity in her voice.

But as the lights of Irresistible come into view, glowing neon into the dark parking lot, they get quiet. Ben pulls into the back alley to see Rose waiting there, pacing by the back door, and the car isn't fully stopped when Rey flings herself out of it, the correct key already thrust out toward Rose.

"How long has it been out?"

Rose doesn't answer.

Because she's staring at Ben, who's still sitting in the driver's seat, then glancing back at Rey, who's propping the door open, then back at Ben again.

Rey's wearing a short, light green silky dress, and fancy silver sandals. Not exactly her typical weekday look.

_Shitting fuck._

"Rose!" Rey barks, and her short, confused friend jolts a little, swinging her head back to the doorway of the parlor.

"Not more than half an hour." Rose reports, "I came as soon as I got the alert about my cameras."

"Ben what's the capacity of that freezer?" Rey yells from inside, and finally he breaks into motion, sliding out the open door and taking a few steps towards the doorway. 

"I wouldn't give me any more than ten gallons."

"Finn's already on his way with the truck. He called Poe, who's bringing all the dry ice he can get for whatever else won't fit."

Rey's head appears around the corner. "I've got thirty four gallons in here. Twenty two are for the event, so those are first priority. Ten with Ben and eight in the truck with Finn leaves four for the event and the remaining twelve leftover fall flavors that we would need the dry ice for."

"Do you need me to go out and get more, too?"

"If you don't mind." Rey says, some relief bleeding into her voice.

Rose disappears with one last confused look at Ben. Rey remains frozen, halfway hidden behind the corner, her face in profile as she stares over at the freezers. 

Ben waits until Rose's headlights have disappeared, then walks to the doorway. His proximity finally causes Rey to move, as she swivels her head to look up at him. He swears in the twenty minutes since she got Rose's call, the dark circles under her eyes have worsened. 

He steps even closer and hunches down to press his forehead to hers. He doesn't offer any reassurances. He knows Rey would falsely smile and thank him, even though she would feel no different. 

Instead, he just says, "Which ten canisters you want me to take?"

She takes a breath, then steps away and opens the nearest freezer. "Start with the two of peppermint rocky road."

They have six gallons loaded when they hear the sound of tires on the pavement. 

Ben steps into the alley to see a familiar old Ford Falcon pulling up. 

Han steps out in his pajama pants, flip flops, and a leather jacket over a t shirt. It looks ridiculous. If Ben weren't so shocked, he might even laugh. He shifts on his feet for a moment before speaking.

"Didn't see the point in you driving all the way to Lando's when you just needed to come back down to the beach. Time is of the essence." He holds his hand out, revealing a battered brass key. "Now you can go straight to Bespin Pointe with the precious cargo."

Ben doesn't even realize Rey's also listening, til she flies past him and envelops Han in a hug. "Thank you," she mutters into the night air past his shoulder, "I am so grateful for your help."

"Yeah, well." Han says, arms down at his sides, failing to return Rey's embrace, "Leia told me to leave it alone, that sometimes you have to think you're drowning in order to learn to swim, or some shit." He sniffs, a habit Ben's seen all his life when his dad disagrees with something. "She's wrong."

Rey levels a long gaze at Han, and it appears to unnerve him the same way it used to do to Ben. He tries to fight his smirk. 

"Trust me, dad. Rey's had plenty of experiences that have taught her to swim." Ben says lowly, and Han nods, finally looking less scared by Rey's laserbeam gaze.

"I suspected as much." His dad mutters, then breaks away to hand him the key. 

He walks back to his car without another word, and just before he gets in, says over his shoulder, "You call again soon sometime, kid. When it's not an emergency. Ok?"

Ben stiffens, and watches Rey watch him react. He takes a measured breath. "Fine. And thanks, dad." 

Han nods and slams his door shut. As suddenly as he arrived, he's gone, and Ben blinks vacantly while Rey loads the last four gallons into his trunk.

She reaches over to grab his face, gently, and her voice is stern now. "This is the time, and the _only_ time, I give you explicit permission to drive the way you always do when I'm not there. Like an absolute maniac."

"I don't dri-  
  
"It's fine, Hux already told me." 

"What did he say?"

"And I quote, '_Ben expresses as much of his anger through road rage as he does through being generally unpleasant.'_"

Ben scoffs, exhaling through his nose, and closes his eyes. "Why am I friends with him again?"

"Because he sticks around even though you spend most of the time being _generally unpleasant?_"

"...Right. That."

"Ok, gallant knight, your chariot awaits." She mumbles, and slams his trunk shut.

"I'll call you as soon as everything is loaded into the freezer and head straight back to help."

"Sounds good." She says, and stares at him for a moment. Then she leans up, giving him a soft kiss as he pulls his keys from his back pocket. 

Nearby, someone clears their throat, and the two of them jump apart as though electrocuted.

_Shitting, fucking goddamn it._

\-------

Poe. Of course. 

It's the second time he's caught them in the alley doing something that by all accounts is a little...unexpected. 

First fighting, now kissing. Rey clears her throat too, Ben starts his car without so much as acknowledging Poe, or the random woman walking up behind him, having just turned the corner carrying two huge bags of dry ice.

Poe's staring at her with that limpid gaze. As usual, there's no point in lying to him. She's sure he's figured out everything already.

She's lucky, though, because Poe seems to understand what's more important right now.

"Were those ice cream canisters in the back of his car?" He says, glancing back at the 4 Runner just as it turns onto the road.

"Yeah. He knows someone with an empty fish freezer. He's gonna keep some of it there for me."

"What a great idea," the random woman says, and Rey glances over at her, blinking away her panic for a moment to take her in.

She's short, thin, with artfully wild caramel brown hair and blue eyes so intense Rey can see them even in the yellowy light from the streetlamp overhead. Her voice is smooth and a little low, and she's wearing a maroon fleece turtleneck and matching leggings. Rey's always looked stupid in monochromatic outfits, but this woman's managed to make it look sleek and artful. 

"Yeah," Rey says, voice a little distant as she tries to place the woman's face, "I'm lucky he thought of it." 

_A college friend of Poe and Phasma's? _Nah. _One of Poe's friends from back in Wyoming? _Definitely not.

Rey's sure she doesn't know her. 

"Sorry, but who are you?" Rey asks as she heads back towards the door to the parlor. 

"Oh, uh," the woman follows, "I'm Zorii. I'm Poe's, uh..." She pulls one dry ice bag higher as she gestures to him standing near her, and Rey's shocked, stunned to see Poe's eyes dart nervously, to see his grip around each plastic bag tense up.

"Zorii's my...friend." He says, in a rushed, shaky, completely un-Poe-like tone, and Rey looks back fast enough to see Zorii's face fall the tiniest bit. 

Rey looks back at Poe, and from one transparent, ever-readable gaze to another she tries to channel, _looks like I'm not the only one keeping secrets._

Based on how quickly Poe looks away, she's pretty sure he understood her telepathic message. 

"So what do you want us to do with all this?" Zorii says haltingly, proffering both bags.

"First I'm gonna put the rest of the winter flavors in the front freezer case out in the parlor. Then, we'll take the fall flavors and spread them out through the freezer in the back. I want a bag in between each case and more on top, if we can get that much."

"We have six more bags in the car." Poe says, tilting his head towards the front of the building.

"Where do you want us to start?"

"If you could go and get them and bring them in that would be great." Rey says, making her way through the kitchen. "Zorii and I will start moving the canisters around." 

Poe nods and disappears.

The bell on the front door clangs as it shuts, and as soon as it's fully closed Rey darts her gaze over to Zorii again.

She's beautiful. Stunningly so, as beautiful as Poe is handsome, and her lithe, small frame is graceful in a way Rey always wished she could be. She looks like she does a lot of Corepower yoga: the kind of person who could sweat for an hour with a frizzy ponytail and still manage to stun your socks off. 

Rey desperately wants to know what's going on with them.

It takes every ounce of her self control not to try to direct the conversation there, while they have a moment of privacy away from Poe. Instead she learns that Zorii is a machinist with Frik's Repairs, getting contracted out to businesses all over the state to fix everything from computer servers to complex manufacturing equipment. 

"Did you grow up around here?" Rey asks, as they load the first few winter flavors into the front case. 

"No, Alaska actually."

"Oh wow, big change. What made you move all the way down here?"

Zorii leans her elbows on the edge of the freezer case for a moment, hunching her shoulders and scraping at some ice with her fingernail. "Poe asked me to."

Rey's eyes widen. "Big ask, for a friend to make."

"He-" Zorii begins, then stops herself. Sighs, shrugs. "Well I might as well just tell you the whole thing." She slaps her outer thigh with one slightly wet hand. "I was drug-running in Alaska," she mutters, and it startles Rey out of her efficient bustling. "Part of a supply chain delivering meth, mostly, to more rural areas outside the capitol."

Rey stands totally still, unsure of what to do or say. "It's how I first met Poe, actually," Zorii jerks her head out towards him, just at the perimeter of the light spilling from the parlor, as he unloads the dry ice onto the sidewalk. "He came up to Alaska to be a pilot. Fly tourists in the little bi-planes up to remote areas, stuff like that. He thought I was an aircraft tech, which was half true. But there were people paying me to hide cargo on those planes. And then, at the other end of training flights, it got unloaded."

She stands then, and turns, pulling the next canister from Rey's hands and fitting it into an empty spot. "He was a part of it and he didn't even know. Poe quit as soon as he found out. Told me he's been having misgivings about pilot school anyway, and this was the sign he needed to finally end it." 

"Then he asked you to move down here?" Rey asks softly, grasping for the only inncouous question she can think of. 

"Sort of. He quit, I stayed. I didn't have any other options. But after he finished business school down here, he tracked me down. Said he'd wondered all those years, what I was doing. If I'd ever gotten out. He heard Frik needed someone experienced with helicopter components, for some drone start-up that wanted a machinist. So he called me. And finally I had another option." Zorii smiles for half a second then levels a direct gaze right at Rey. "I got a clean break, thankfully. Only because there were five more people, desperate and poor, willing to take my place up there."

Rey swallows, and decides it's her turn to be honest, too. "I know all about being trapped by your circumstances. Just trying to keep going. It took a friend with more options offering to help, to get me out too."

Zorii nods, that gaze still so direct. No wonder she gets along with Poe. Zorii smiles faintly and they turn back to the freezer case, loading the last four canisters. They're hauling the fall flavors back to the kitchen when Rey finally says it.

"You don't have to answer, but are...are you and Poe really just friends?" 

Zorii turns to look at her, right as the bell clangs to indicate Poe's walked in. Zorii just levels Rey with a tired gaze, sighs, and raises her eyebrows.

It's all the answer Rey needs. 

Poe drifts past her and begins talking with Zorii about how best to pack the dry ice around each canister. Rey thinks back on Zorii, telling her a complete and terrifying truth within moments of meeting her.

And before that, when Han showed up, with no obligation to help her at all, let alone make the trip down here.

Before that, the confusion in Rose's face as Rey emerged from Ben's car.

Even earlier, when she stared at Ben in the dim light of the Italian restaurant, and felt like things were changing.

A few times in her life, she's had nights like this. Ones she swears must be coming from a different universe, they seem so surreal. She pinches the thin skin on her inner wrist, just to feel the pain, just to remind herself that it isn't some fever dream after too much Nyquil.

Her ice cream really is melting. Poe really did bring his secret girlfriend to help. She really will have to stop lying to Rose soon.

And she really, really is falling in love with Ben.

\-------

He can't even imagine how much money Lando's wasting keeping that freezer running all the time when he's not using it.

Not that Ben's complaining, considering it was his saving grace, but still. He pulls in behind the parlor to see the ice cream truck parked there, Finn standing on the step that leads to the driver's seat, Rose talking to him from the pavement.

Rey, Poe, and a woman Ben doesn't recognize are leaned against the building, chatting. There are a pile of empty plastic bags at Rey's feet.

As he slows to a stop, everyone turns to look at him, and he tries to shake off the uncomfortable jittering in his stomach.

"All set?" He says directly to Rey as he gets out. 

"All set." She confirms, and her voice sounds more steady than it has since they first got here. "We got enough dry ice that we aren't going to have to run the generator for the truck all night. Just long enough to chill the freezer case in there, then the ice should keep it cold until the end of the event tonight."

"Good, good," he nods. He drags a pebble around with the toe of his shoe, hands shoved in his back pockets. "What's the plan for getting the wiring fixed?"

"I'm gonna call our electrical guy in the morning," the unknown woman says, "he owes me one after I fixed his skiff engine a few months back." 

He has a million questions about who she is and how she knows someone qualified to fix this, but instead just nods again.

"Should we get going?" Poe says softly, and the woman nods. They say their goodbyes, Rey giving a hug to each, and Ben raises a hand in farewell as they disappear through the parlor kitchen. 

"Please go home guys, I've got it under control here." Rey walks over to Finn and Rose. Finn tries to insist that he stay, but since he drove the truck here he doesn't have a ride back, so leaving with Rose makes the most sense.

They head off to where her car is parked on the corner, their voices fading into the darkness, and then it's just the two of them again, like it was before.

When they were on a _date._ Their first one, really. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, then Rey thumbs towards the truck. "Needs another half an hour to finish chilling, before we can lock it up and head out."

He nods again. "Okay." 

"So you can go if you want, I'll walk home once it's do-"

"Nah, I'd rather just see it through til it's done. Think it'll give me some peace of mind." He tries to say it without his usual dose of intensity, without revealing that he just doesn't want to leave.

Doesn't want to leave _her._

He's pretty sure she can tell anyway. She just nods a little, "All right."

He follows her into the truck and they sit down, their backs to the freezer case. Rey keeps an eye on the temperature gauge against the wall, the needle informing them that it's still six degrees too warm than Rey would want.

After a moment of sitting in the silence, Ben reaches over and flicks off the harsh fluroescent lighting, the yellow of the streetlamp casting through the windshield and across their outstretched legs. 

"Thank you," Ben nearly whispers into the velvet darkness. 

"For what?" She sounds almost reverent, as though she can sense what softness he's about to admit.

"For accepting my help. For letting me prove that I was useful." His throat thickens as she reaches a hand out to cup his jaw. "For...making me feel needed."

"Oh, Ben," she says, and pulls herself up and onto his lap, straddling his legs. He leans his face into her neck, and takes in a deep breath of her sweat and her cheap fruity shampoo.

It's addictive.

Her lips press against his hair. "You don't have to be useful to be valuable." She presses her lips harder, in a clear and distinct kiss this time, then tilts his head to place one on his lips, too. Then a second, then a third. "I will banish that idea from you."

They kiss slow and lazy, with all the closeness but none of the fervor from his car earlier. When Rey finally bothers to look back at the thermometer, the needle's gone down far enough for them to make sure the freezer case is sealed up, so they turn off the generator.

They're just getting into the car. "Hey."

She looks up from her phone, "Yeah?"

"A lot of people care about you." 

Her brow pinches a little. "What?"

"When something went really wrong," he gestures over at the parlor, "a lot of people showed up. And that's not because you make great ice cream. It's because you're a good person." Her eyes get bigger, and Ben can see her jaw clench. "Not because they felt obligated, or any other shit. Because they care about you."

She takes a deep breath, marinating in his words, then smiles the tiniest bit. After a second, her grin stretches wider.

"What?" He asks, as they slide into the car.

"I like this."

"You like what?"

She turns fully towards him. "Telling each other what we need to hear."

He smiles back, and she settles into her seat, and before he knows it they're in front of her apartment. 

He walks her to the door, leaving the car running, and at the top of the stairs, lays one long, final smacking kiss onto her. Before he can leave, she grips his shirt in her fist.

"Remember that thing you said? About if I thought I could love you?"

He swallows hard. "Yeah?"

"I totally can."

His heart stutters for a moment, looking at the simple, bare hope on her face.

"I totally can too." He takes a step closer, for a short, soft kiss, and she lets his shirt go. She watches him walk down the stairs, which he realizes when he looks back to get one last glance at her. As he pulls away and begins the dark, quiet drive to his house, Ben feels that stutter in his heart again, and he can't stop the smile that takes over.

\-------

Poe showed up right as Winter Wonderland Wednesday is wrapping up. Frik's electrician patched up the wiring enough that they can make it a few more weeks without any further issues, but he was clear with Rey as he ate his free Double Decker cone at the counter: soon, some major repairs would need to be done. Rey contacts the building owners the second he's out the door, but doesn't get ahold of them, and leaves a lengthy voicemail. 

She's transferring the last bits of the winter flavors into pint containers when Poe appears. "How'd the event go?"

She nods, humming. "Good. All the regulars showed up, and two bachelorette parties, plus that Girl Scout troop who promised they'd come after I let them sell their cookies outside. And Ben told the distillery staff, so a few of them came around too."

Poe leans against the counter. "Awesome. I'm relieved everything worked out last night. That must have been really scary for you."

She blows out a breath, "Yeah. I still can't believe we managed to figure out everything so quickly."

He reaches into the breast pocket of his jacket. "Here are all the receipts for the dry ice. There's one that Zorii still has, but I called her and wrote the amount for that transaction on the bottom of this one, right there." He points to the strip of paper on the very top.

"Perfect, that works," Rey takes the stapled stack of slips from him and slides it under the cash drawer of the register. "I'll have a check for you by the end of the week."

"No rush, thanks." 

She reaches into the nearest freezer case and pulls out a root beer float, setting it squarely in front of him with a smirk. "You're the best," Poe says with a groan, and reaches for the stainless steel straw, taking a huge sip and closing his eyes in bliss.

"Zorii's really cool, by the way," Rey says casually, and watches out of the corner of her eye as Poe stiffens. She swears, he's acted more like a normal human in the past 24 hours than he has in the handful of years she's known him.

"Yeah, we just happened to be hanging out when Finn called me last night. She jumped at the opportunity to help."

Rey takes a breath. Her and Ben's promise to one another runs through her mind. _Honesty._

Perhaps, their dedication to honesty can go beyond just the two of them. And Rey knows exactly where she wants to start.

"She gave me the impression you've helped her quite a bit, too."

Poe tries to level a confused, intrigued gaze at her, but she sees it edging on nervousness. 

"She told me about Alaska, Poe. About the drugs, and why you left. And how she ended up living here."

He's silent, his grip gone limp around the straw. Rey knew he wouldn't try to deny it, that's not his style. But still, it seems he doesn't know what else to say. He just waits.

"She also uh, she gave me the impression that despite how you introduced her, that you guys aren't really just friends."

"We aren't." He says immediately, and Rey blinks in surprise. "Ever since she moved here last year we've...we hook up every few months, and we hang out all the time, but we've never really committed to anything. I like her a lot, but. I'm too scared of ruining it."

Rey nods, looking down to pick at where the paint is wearing off the cash register. "I'm trying to...do this thing, where I just ask people honest questions. And where I answer questions honestly, too." 

"Hmm." Poe grunts, and finally, slowly, starts stirring his float again. "Why?"

"I feel like I'd be happier if I told the truth more." She slides her hands into her apron pockets and looks up at him. "I was watching my life get more and more tangled up, from not telling the truth. Or only telling part of it."

Poe, as ever, is perceptive. "Is there something you wanna tell me?"

Inside her pockets, her hands clench into fists. She starts to sweat, a visceral reaction to verbalizing something she held silent for so long, but she forces the words out.

"Ben and I are in a relationship. A really complicated, kinda fucked up relationship, but we are figuring it out." 

Poe glances back and forth between both her eyes for a moment, then his head bobs a little, "I knew there was still something going on with you guys. This wasn't what I expected, though."

She stops wiping the counter. "What did you expect?"

"I was convinced that after the _hate sex_ you referenced before, you had no idea idea how to act around each other."

Rey considers it for a moment, then half her face lifts in a smirk. "You're kinds right, though. We didn't have any idea how to act around each other."

"But you do now?"

"But we do now." Her voice is soft. They're both silent for a long moment, Poe taking deep draws of his float and Rey slowly tugging a loose thread from her rag. "Look, if honesty is what's working things out between me and Ben, maybe honesty can make anything work out between anyone. You should tell Zorii the truth. She deserves it."

Poe doesn't react, and all the soda's gone from his glass, so he attacks the remaining glob of vanilla with his spoon. When he looks up at her, spoon lodged in the pocket of his cheek, she can see in his eyes he knows she's right. She huffs a little.

"What?" He garbles.

"Nothing, just...strange to see the almighty Dameron brought back to earth by something so mundane as romance."

He grins a little, but it fades fast, and he pulls the spoon from his mouth, dropping it into the sundae glass with a clatter.

"Romance isn't mundane at all." 

"Hmm?"

"Think of how much we put up with, just to keep it."

Rey looks at him, at this man who for so long was this untouchable enigma, immune to the weak emotions and proclivities of mere mortals, admitting he's no stronger than any of them. It's startling, but it's relieving, too.

Everyone is as desperate and confused as everyone else, you just have to ask the right questions to find that out. 

\-------

"I cannot believe you felt this was worthy of a phone conversation," Rey says, as she Swiffers her apartment and listens to the rhythmic sound of Ben waxing his board.

"Look, it's been a long time since I won an argument with Mitaka, and I just need you to be on my side for this one. We've chosen you as the edjudicator."

"Then shouldn't you be leaving me alone? To be impartial? To fairly edjudicate?"

"I'm pretty sure after everything we put each other through, we've built some small kernel of loyalty."

"Oh certainly," Rey reassures him, knees cracking as she bends down to tilt the Swiffer under the couch, "but this feels like a conflict of interest." 

"Just hand down your verdict, we don't have all day." 

"All right, Jesus, keep your panties on." Rey drops the handle to the floor and collapses onto her couch, which raises a small cloud of dust. She should probably vacuum here, too.

She gives it a good, long ponder, and then delivers the answer she knows Ben doesn't want to hear. 

"It's gotta be shepherd's pie." She says, resigned. "Shepherd's pie is the savory food most analogous to ice cream."

"No!" He responds immediately, and she hears the wax bar hit his board with a clatter. "Explain!"

"Well let me start by telling you all the reasons tomato sauce certainly isn't the savory comparison to ice cream," Ben huffs, and she ignores him, "first and foremost, the texture is all different. I could not put tomato sauce into a scoop and place it on a cone."

"And you think you could with Shepherd's pie?"

"Probably!" She waves her hand in the air a little. "I've seen a few in my life that hold their shape on a serving spoon."

"That's ridiculous." He scoffs.

"Fine, Benjamin," she grins picturing his wince. _He hates his full name._ "Lay out your argument for me. Defend why tomato sauce makes more sense."

"First, because they each have an extremely consistent base ingridient. Tomatoes for one. Milk for the other. Second, because both tomato sauce and ice cream have Italian origins. Third, because everyone has hyperspecific, extremely strong opinions. Like that San Marzanos are the only acceptable canned brand, or that Madagascar is the only acceptable place to source your vanilla."

"Okay, to play Mitaka in this argument, shepherd's pie also has an extremely consistent base. It's always potatoes, which if you think about it, are more like milk since they're the same color."

"Okay..."

"And the texture of Shepherd's pie is more heterogeneous, just like ice cream. There are pieces and chunks of all sorts of ingredients."

"Tomato sauce has chunks!" He cries, "Just think of hearty marinara. Very chunky."

"Not the same. The tomato _is_ the chunk, in a lot of sauces. The milk in the ice cream is not the component responsible for the chunk. Just as the potato is not the chunk in the shepherd's pie. The chunk is an added element like the peas or carrots."

"I just," he says, and trails off, exasperated, "I was so sure you'd think I was right!"

She sits up, "Well I'm sorry to let you down, bro."

"Anyways," the lingering defeat still rings in his voice, "how's your day going?"

"Good. Got Jess to take over for the afternoon so I could come home and clean. Things got bad around here."

"How bad?"

"There was an actual, real life dust bunny on the floor next to the bed."

"Jesus."

"Yes, please invoke his name. I could use some divine intervention here."

He laughs, and she listens for a moment, content to close her eyes and try to catalogue the sounds of him moving around his house. She hears the squeaky hinge on the closet door, the sound of clothes hangers clacking together. The soft mewl of Star and Ben's wordless murmurs as he talks to her. He's the only person she knows who talks to animals, and babies, utterly as though they are adults. Doesn't change his tone or inflection one bit. 

Finally, he mutters in a voice low and close, "So what are you up to for the rest of the day?"

She practically jumps off the couch, trying to feign nonchalance. The question she's been waiting for. "Umm, not much. There's a new ramen house over near the university, it's crazy popular but I know someone on the waitstaff who offered to reserve me a table. Wanna go?"

"Sure," he says, "ramen sounds great. What time should I pick you up?"

Rey tries to fight the grin the spreads across her face, even though he can't see her. He _knows_ her, he'll _hear_ it. 

"Seven-thirty maybe?"

"Sounds good, see you then." 

"Bye." She ends the call, and looks across the room, at the silvery sequined dress hanging near the bathroom door. She wonders, as she approaches the bathroom, if she has any blue eyeshadow, and fights to contain the gleeful mischief that makes her want to prance instead of walk. Beebee stares at her reproachfully.

"Beebs, Ben has no idea what he's in for."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit oh shit what's she gonna do to him


	20. Birdbath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grab your frosted lipstick and your acid-wash denim jacket, friends...
> 
> Two chapters to go. Letting go of this story is gonna be hard for me, I think.

Rey's door makes that same awful shrieking noise when she swings it open.

Ben stares at her. At her smirk, at her pastel eye shadow, at her..._oh Jesus_, what happened to her hair?

He blinks. "We're not really going to that ramen place, are we?" He looks down at her too-shiny grey strapless dress.

"Not exactly." Her voice practically oozes mischief.

"We aren't going out to dinner at all, are we?"

Rey shakes her head, biting a coral-tinted lip.

"We're going to prom."

More blinking.

"80s prom, to be precise." She finally steps back from the doorway and he follows her in, to see a pair of pointy silver pumps sitting by the kitchen island. "There's a club downtown throwing a huge event. There's food and spiked punch and plenty of laser lights. I've even been told the bathrooms are stocked with extra hairspray."

Ben smirks at the obvious excitement in her voice, then exhales a tiny laugh before muttering, "Why?" 

"High School Ben never went to prom," she says simply, shrugging. "High School Rey already had her GED and was working three jobs. I want to make up for some of the things we missed." He steps forward until his Oxford-clad feet just brushing her bare toes, then reaches for her waist with both hands. "And it just sounds fun," she mumbles down at the floor, head hung. 

"Hey," she lifts her head to look at him, eyes darting all over his face. He lets his smirk widen a little, "it does sound fun." A smile to mirror his own blooms on her face. "And you look great."

She rolls her eyes and smooths down the front of her dress. "Courtesy of the Nifty Thrifty." Her eyes dart back up to his. "I got you something while I was there, too." 

He pinches his brow. "You did?"

She nods, and slides back the folding door that hide her stacked washer-dryer. Hanging on a hook in the narrow strip of wall space is a hanger.

And on that hanger is a tuxedo t-shirt.

He laughs outright, staring at the cracking acrylic design and the lurid red rose printed onto the lapel.

"I figured this was a good substitute for a real suit." She holds it out to him, and he holds it up to his body. Shockingly, he thinks it might fit. 

"And I found this great tutorial for your hair," her voice is picking up speed, "and a lot of guys back in the 80s wore eyeliner, so I was thinking we cou-"

Through increasing laughter he grates out, "No, no. No hair stuff, no make up. I'll wear the t-shirt and that will sufficiently transport me back to the appropriate decade."

"Pleeease?" She wheedles. "I went all out with my look, I just want you to do the same. No one important is gonna see you there, now's your chance to, you know. Loosen up; do something crazy." 

He rolls his jaw around, then reaches back over his head and pulls his blue sweater off in one fluid movement. He watches her for a moment, drinking in the heated gaze she skips all over his body, then tugs on the t-shirt. It's a little tight across the pecs, but it'll do. He sighs, and places both hands on his hips.

"Birdbath?"

She quirks an eyebrow. "'Birdbath?'"

"Remember?" He steps closer. "Compromise?" 

"Okay," she says on a laugh. There's something warm and fond in her gaze, he wonders, for a moment, if she's appreciating his effort to find a common ground. To keep his limits but still make her happy. It's all he wants: to assert what he wants but allow her to do the same. She takes a breath. "Okay, yeah. Birdbath."

\-------

The Birdbath they eventually reach: just a little bit of eyeliner. Some on his lower lash line and a little smudged into the outer corners. He swears and his eyes water while Rey is applying it, despite her gentle hands, and his whining has her howling with laughter.

Her end of the Birdbath is that she's not allowed to touch his hair. He runs a hand through it to haphazardly tousle it a little, then shoves her into the car before she can attack him with a can of Aquanet. 

She pulls up a playlist of power ballads to hype them up, and Ben finds himself more and more willing to, as she phrased it,_ loosen up_. Her excitement over the night is addictive, he's never seen her so light, none of the sharp self-awareness or forced eagerness about her. Just soft eyes and a wide, genuine smile, bopping along to the music while her teased hair remains totally motionless, rendered immobile by all the styling she did. 

He would do a lot to see her this happy.

_Like, for example, agree to wear eyeliner._

He pictures himself three years ago. Who he was, what he was like. How he made other people feel. 

He compares it all to her. How he's made her feel now, thanking him with small kisses as she drew that tiny black stick around his eyes. Wondering how his day went, wanting to hear about his pain and his frustrations, wanting to share her own. 

He didn't know relationships could be like this. That you could trust someone so much, even with the scary parts of yourself, because they had proven time and again that they loved you anyway. 

He thinks of all the shit they went through the past seven months, that brought them here. Brought them to sitting in his car on a Saturday night, both of them singing tunelessly along to Final Countdown, desperate for two cups of spiked punch. 

Right now, Ben isn't the man who doesn't speak to his family, who is trapped in a toxic relationship with a manipulative boss, who can count his friends on one hand because he's spent his entire adulthood being mean and distant and selfish.

Right now, Rey isn't the orphan, worn down by a system that claimed to care about her, alone in the world but for a single good friend and her own clever mind, clawing her way to a decent life then scrabbling for every scrap of approval and affection she could wring from people.

Tonight all that other shit is sitting in the backseat, while upfront there are two people in love, even if they haven't said it yet.

Tonight he wants to be ridiculous and silly and stupid and do every second of it knowing he will wake up tomorrow and she will still love him.

He turns up the radio, reaches out to place one broad hand on her bare upper back, and swings the car into the parking lot.

\-------

"I thought you said no one important would see me here."

There, standing in a knot near the entrance chatting, is Poe, wearing a profoundly hideous powder blue suit. 

Ben glowers at Rey from the corner of the sidewalk.

"Well yeah," Rey mutters, trying to yank him by his hand down the block, "no one important, like Snoke, or anyone whose image of you would be tarnished by the sight of you in eyeliner and that t-shirt. It's just Poe."

_"Poe_, the man who seems to have a sensory ability to read minds. That Poe. He isn't important." Ben drawls.

"It was his idea!" Rey cries, "He loves 80s music, and I mentioned the thing about how you and I had both never been to prom, and he insisted I wouldn't be able to get you to come."

"And you took that as a challenge."

"I don't like being told there are things I can't do."

"I've noticed." He huffs, but Rey just grins in response.

"Ben," she's no longer tugging on his arm but stepping closer. He pulls his eyes away from Poe down the block and looks at her. Her face has gone soft and nervous. "Poe....Poe..._knows._"

Ben assumes, what with the number of times Poe's caught them in suspicious positions, the most recent of which was literally kissing in the alley the night her ice cream almost melted.

Yet the admission from Rey still makes his stomach flip a little.

"How'd that happen?" He says, not angrily, just seeking. 

"He uh, he told me some stuff that was going on between him and Zorii, that woman who came to help that night." She shifts on her feet, and Ben pulls her closer by her waist, trying to silently reassure her. Encourage her. "I was stressing the importance that he be honest with her. That he tell her the truth of what he felt, and what he wanted, and admitted why he hadn't been truthful up until that point. He asked me why, and I explained what was urging me to be more honest."

"Me?" He says meekly, incredulously.

It feels odd that he could inspire such a profound change in her, even though he already knows it to be true.

"You." She smiles. "So, yeah. He knows. We don't have to be afraid, around him. We can be...the way we want to be."

Ben nods, an odd mix of relief and anticipation settling into him. It's the first time in public, around someone they know, where they can be _them_. Unattenuated. 

"Okay." 

"I'm sorry I told him without asking you first." She reaches up to tuck some of his hair back.

He shakes his head. "Don't be. I trust you." 

He means it in more ways than she will probably ever know.

\-------

Rey's promises were not unfounded.

There are laser lights galore. And a fog machine. Photo booths with props, and a few smaller rooms in the back where classic 80s films are being streamed. Rey finds a table, dropping her purse, and disappears in search of drinks. 

"So how's business?" Poe yells over the cacophony of voices and the Blondie song playing over the speakers. 

"Doing good. On track to be making a profit in about eight more months, if things hold steady." 

"Good, good," Ben notices Poe's utterly penetrating gaze has softened somewhat, and he wonders what's causing it. "Whenever I'm around town I try to spread the word, same way I did for Rey when she started out." 

Ben nods, humming. "Thanks man, I really appreciate that."

Poe shrugs, smirking, "You make good whiskey!" It draws a genuine laugh out of Ben, and Poe leans back in his seat, seeming to relax even more. "Although if you want to talk liquor, Zorii's the one you need to speak to. She knows everything there is to know about spirits."

Ben's confused. "Didn't Rey tell me she's a machinist?"

"Yeah, it's just been personal interest, I guess. Her kitchen shelf's full of cocktail books."

"Cool, I hope I'll get to chat with her some time."

Poe flips over his phone to check the time. "She should be here any minute, don't know what's holding her up."

"Zorii's coming?" 

"Yeah, I told her about it the other day, an-" Poe falters, narrowing his eyes, "did I forget to tell Rey Zorii would be here?"

Ben shrugs, "Dunno. But she only mentioned to me that you would be here."

"Oh," Poe knits his brow and clenches his jaw, his usual intensity returned. "My bad, man."

"No need to apologize to me," Ben counters.

"No I know, just," with the full force of his normal gaze turned on Ben again, it makes him as nervous as that day Poe first did it at the wedding. "Rey mentioned you might be weird about the fact that other people would be here. I don't want this to be uncomfortable, for you."

"I appreciate that," Ben offers, and Poe nods, "but I don't want that to be the case anymore."

The directness of Poe's gaze speaks for him, so Ben continues. "I'm trying to fix that."

"For her?" Poe adds simply.

"For her." Ben affirms, and feels his cheeks pink as he thinks of Rey, wild and laughing and singing in the car on the way here.

So different from the woman lain on the floor of her storage room, a cursed photo hidden in her pocket.

"I get that," Poe looks down to fiddle with the plastic tablecloth. "Hey Ben?" 

"Yeah?" Ben looks away from the steady stream of people coming through the entrance.

"Do you...do you remember seeing each other as kids? In Coruscant Proper?"

Ben's hand twitches on the table, startled. "What?"

"You grew up right off of Lawrence Avenue, right?" Poe presses, and Ben has the presence of mind to nod.

"I did too. Two streets over. On Pershing Lane."

Ben thinks back, flipping through the faces of the neighborhood kids. He only really played with them til he was about twelve, when he started to withdraw, socially.

"And," Poe goes on, "and my mom was on the Healing Hunger board with Leia, too. I wouldn't expect you to remember that, of course."

"Right, yeah."

"And, you got an entrepreneurship minor, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"We had two classes together at NCU." 

Ben flushes again, and not because he's thinking fondly of Rey this time. He's not sure if this is what Poe's grasping for, but he gives it anyway. "I'm really sorry that I don't remember you, man. In college I was always sort of - preoccupied, but the fact that I don't remember you as kids isn't ver-"

"No, no no," Poe rushes to say, and Ben quiets, waiting, "I'm not hurt because you don't remember me. I just remember when I was maybe fourteen, and my mom mentioned that Leia had stopped talking about you, when they were catching up at their meetings every month." Poe's gaze grows far away as the writhing anxiety in Ben's stomach grows. "And it bothered me. It stuck with me. Every once in a while I would ask my parents if they had heard anything about you, or if they'd seen you around the neighborhood, and then one day my dad said he'd heard you weren't living there anymore." Poe sighs. "I forgot about it eventually, but then when I saw you walking into that lecture hall sophomore year, it felt like seeing a ghost. Same feeling I got when I found out you were in Hux's wedding party."

Ben's overwhelmed by uncomfortable memories, and unclear about the purpose of mentioning all this, so he just stares at the table. 

"I would never ask you to tell me what happened in those years in between, but-" Poe sits up straighter, leans forward a little, "I just need to know, were you...okay?"

Ben's throat constricts. He's overcome for a moment, at the idea that Poe would care, that a person he couldn't even bother to remember held such concern for him. 

But he knows part of being a different, better person is realizing the limits and the inefficiencies of who you were before. Admitting how inward he used to be, so wrapped up in his own problems that he didn't notice a childhood playmate in a classroom of thirty students. 

"I was safe, if that's what you mean." He finally grates out. "Nothing bad happened to me, I guess." 

Poe does it again. Just staring, waiting.

"But those years were not _good,_ either. They're... ones I'd rather forget." Poe gazes at him, eyes gentler again, for a long moment.

"Thanks for for telling me that." Poe's voice is halting, but he truly does look appreciative, and Ben just nods. 

It's at that moment that Rey appears, three plastic glasses of neon pink liquid balanced in her tiny hands, grinning hugely.

"They have grapefruit margaritas!" At his first sip, Ben's almost knocked off his chair by the cloying sweetness and the burn of tequila, but Rey just takes a second taste and grins ferally. "It's gonna be a fun night."

"Too many of these, though, and it will very suddenly stop being fun," Poe warns, which draws a laugh from all three of them.

Before they can discuss the danger of the drinks much more, Ben sees that vaguely familiar head of curly light brown hair. She's got a narrow, dark green dress on, with square shoulders and draped big sleeves. She's carrying a paper plate practically bending under its own weight. "They've got bagel bites!" Her voice has all the same enthusiasm of Rey's from only seconds before. 

"Zorii?" Rey yells.

"Rey! I was so happy when Poe told me you would be here!"

"Wish I could say the same!" Rey levels an accusing glare at Poe, who has the grace to look bashful and utter a '_my bad'_ under his breath.

"Well, nothing wrong with a good surprise," Zorii plops down in a free chair and everyone reaches for a tiny pizza bagel at the same moment. "Help yourself. Don't worry if we run out soon, Finn's on his way over with more too." 

"Finn's here?" Rey repeats, her voice taking on a note of hysteria. Ben's eyes widen, and he presses a hand to her lower back. 

"Yeah, I ran into him by the snack table. You..." Zorii hesitates, "you didn't know?"

"No, I didn't." Rey's voice goes small. She looks over at him and he holds her gaze. "Why didn't he tell me he was coming?"

"Did you tell him we were coming?" He supplies, and her mouth twists wryly.

"Well, no. But I had a reason to keep that a secret," she takes his hand, leans into him. 

Ben glances into the crowd, and two faces known to him immediately stand out. One tall-ish, one very short. Their mouths meet in a kiss.

_Fucking shit._

Ben coughs on his bagel bite, weighing for a moment if he should say anything.

_Truth. Honesty._ "Seems Finn might have had a reason to keep it a secret, too." He gestures with his free hand.

Rey follows the direction of his finger, right to where Finn is bent over an equally full plate he carries, kissing Rose.

"What?" Rey whispers, her mouth gaping open, and it's a long moment before she looks back at Ben, an unspoken question in her eyes.

_Shitting fuck._

"I didn't know."

"None of us did," Poe chimes in, and Rey's broken from her spell of watching them, looking back at the other occupants of the table, seeming relieved that she's not the only one who was kept in the dark.

They're all silent for a moment, and when Ben looks back across the room Finn is busy budging appetizers away from the edge of the plate. 

But Rose is staring back at him, her eyes like saucers. He tries to provide the most reassuring gaze he can, encouraging them to come to the table, but her face doesn't change.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Rey pushes her chair back abruptly, downing her drink in one massive swallow then snatching her purse. Zorii starts to get up, offering to go with her, but Ben holds out a hand.

"I think she wants to be alone," he watches Rey's silvery dress disappear down a hallway.

"Did she and Finn...used to have a thing or something? Before they started the ice cream place?" Zorii asks gently, and Poe's already shaking his head.

"No. They grew up in foster care together," Ben tries to keep the details spare, "They're best friends. There's a lot of trust there, so I imagine Rey feels somewhat...confused."

He utters the last word right as Poe offers, "_Betrayed,_" and Ben begrudgingly nods to that.

"Hey guys," Finn sounds almost sullen, all the light in his eyes from a moment ago disappeared. Rose looks similarly chastened as she settles in next to him, then promptly stuffs two cream puffs into her mouth, buying herself a moment of silence. "Where's uh...where'd Rey go?"

"To the bathroom," Ben says, with a precise inflection to indicate that she most certainly, without a doubt, did not need the bathroom. 

"Should I-" Rose finally says around a half-full mouth.

"Not yet," Ben rebuts instantly. 

"So you could probably tell and I maybe don't need to say anything, but we're uh," Finn starts, reaching over to touch Rose's hand, and despite the painful, brittle awkwardness of the moment, she still smiles at him, her eyes warming, "we're-"

"I think you should wait til Rey gets back to make any announcements," Poe declares, ringing with the unquestioning confidence Ben's heard in his voice before, and Finn falls silent.

They cycle through a few more songs, eating and drinking and making stilted conversation about plans for the special New Years trivia night at First Order, about Poe and Zorii's ski trip to Squaw Valley last weekend, about some billionaire's yacht out on Catalina she got to repair recently. Zorii's got a straightforward way about her, but she's a great conversationalist, with wry humor and ever-able to think of a good, easy question to keep the topic going.

Ben silently thanks the universe for her.

When his watch informs him twenty minutes have gone by, he announces that he's off to the bathroom too, but everyone's faces clearly indicate they know what he's really about.

He finds her in that hall, but further down, past the bathrooms. His view of her is fragmented through the legs of several kids' high chairs stacked against the wall.

"Hey," he says from ten feet away, the same way he would to a skittish animal, a warning of his approach. He can see some red rimming her eyes and her face is even more angular than normal, tensed in anger.

"Why wouldn't he tell me?" She spits immediately, bitingly.

"Well," Ben takes that as tacit permission and steps closer, until he's hovering over her, and she leans her head back, staring at the ceiling past his head, "what were all the reasons _you_ didn't tell _him_?"

He crooks a finger back and forth between them to indicate his meaning. "You were afraid of what he would think? Think you were nuts for dating such an asshole?" Her eyes well up again, and he cups her jaw. "You felt like we had something perfect, and didn't want anything from the outside world to ruin it?" She runs her tongue over her teeth as she swipes two tears away, "You were worried he might think that you didn't need him anymore?"

She doesn't respond other than tipping her head further into his grasp, so he just kisses her forehead. "We have to consider that he was probably afraid of some of those same things, Rey."

She sniffs. "Except Rose was never an asshole."

He huffs a breath into her hair, "Yeah, good point."

"But the other stuff, maybe."

"Yeah, maybe."

He pulls back, inhaling deeply and watching her mirror him two seconds later. "Both of you are always gonna need each other, Rey. There's stuff that you guys share, that no one else will ever be able to understand."

She swallows hard, exaggerating a frown to keep herself from crying again, and he strokes gentle hands over her bare shoulders. He wants desperately to touch her hair, but it's so ratted with hairspray he's not sure he wants to know how it feels, or that she would appreciate his flattening it. 

"Maybe if we want them to be honest, it's time we do the same thing." He offers, and watches her consider it for a long moment, watches a thousand protestations spring to life and then die just before reaching her lips.

Finally she whispers, "Yeah, I think that would be good."

He leans into her and kisses her gently. When he goes to pull back she leans into it again, pressing closer, so he prolongs it, opening his lips and letting his tongue snake out to trace hers. She shivers.

Suddenly a familiar, low, female voice carries from the other end of the hall. Their mouths tear apart from one another's and they both glance at the half-shuttered view through the high chairs to see Phasma, her hair also teased to high heaven. Next to her, Hux is in a black suit with a David Bowie lightning bolt painted on his face.

Ben's normally internal profanity breaks through. "Goddamn. You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

Rey stares at them for a long moment, blinking in surprise, but then it fades from her face, and a tiny grin begins. First a little chuckle, then a pause, then another, longer one. "God, could this," she begins, her voice made musical by her laughter, and it sets off a quiver of something in his own chest, "could this night get any weirder?"

By the time her words are out they're leaning on one another, the sheet absurdity overtaking them both and pushing them into hysteria, laughter that begets more laughter, an almost painful catharsis that leaves her doubled over and him bent above her. 

They pull it together, after Ben flings himself onto the wall next to her and stares at the blank taupe paint in front of him, gasping.

Rey looks through their little view to see Hux emerge from the men's room and follow Phasma into the club. "Fuck it. One fell swoop. Think it's time to be honest with them, too?"

Ben feels that same lead weight of anxiety fall into his abdomen, the same way it's done a dozen other times tonight, but knows she's right, so he forces out a nod. 

"You go find them, bring them back to our table."

She lifts their entwined hands and kisses the back of his wrist, and then they break apart, traversing the hallway in parallel until they reach the mouth of the room, at which point Ben easily locates the platinum blonde, coiffed head towering above so many others.

He still isn't used to these sudden moments of realizing something's about to change.

\-------

Hux and Phasma seat themselves at the table. Phasma looks baffled but pleased at all the familiar faces. Hux, as usual, is inscrutably scowling but starts to greet Poe. Rey cuts him off.

"Thank you for being here today." She says stiffly, hands crossed on the table.

_Jesus woman, you're not the leader of the United Nations,_ she chastises herself, but presses on.

All around, people drink and laugh and mingle. Some have started dancing, others chat while waiting in line for the photo booths. All seemingly oblivious to the strange solemnity hanging over that singular table.

"Uh, you're welcome?" Phasma responds, the delight faded from her face and taken up by pure confusion.

"I know none of us realized that the others would be here tonight," Rey's pointed gaze at Finn is met with a nervous flinch from him, "but since we are, I think we should take advantage of the opportunity." 

Hux's scowl flickers into something bemused. "Yeah, I think it's gonna be a fun night, though I don't see why you-"

"There's something we want to say," Ben finally chimes in, and Rey shoots him a grateful glance.

"I'm gonna cut to the chase. Ben and I are in a relationship. We technically have been for a few months, but the way we talked and interacted was pretty messed up, and things didn't get better until around Thanksgiving."

She feels Ben shudder a little, and she feels a little bad for reminding him of that nightmarish day.

"But things now are good," he rushes to add, and she nods.

"We're sorry we didn't tell you," she grasps for some explanation that will work for everyone. "We know all of you care about us but for a long time, the nature of our relationship wasn't something either of us was proud of. All of you know there's been a lot of...animosity between us, and I think we were ashamed that we were continuing to be so toxic to one another while also doing...other things."

Hux's pinched expression cracks into a lascivious grin and he splutters out a laugh, eyeing them. Phasma elbows him hard, which sufficiently slides his face back to 'Resting Bitch.'

"I think we didn't know how to admit that things had changed." Ben adds, lifting his arm around the back of Rey's chair and looking at her. "And we definitely couldn't be honest with you when we didn't even know how to be honest with each other."

That seems to be the natural end of what they have to say, so they glance around the table, but no one visibly or audibly reacts. Poe and Zorii both look predictably unsurprised. Rose and Finn, utterly shocked and a little scared. Hux looks normal, and Phasma looks surprised but fond, glancing between them.

"But I believe we aren't the only ones here with something to admit to," Rey states bluntly, turning her gaze on her oldest friend and one of her newest. Finn squirms, actually leaning away from Rose a little, but Rey sees a small hand with green nail polish tighten its hold on her margarita glass, as if in preparation.

"Finn and I are also in a relationship," it comes out so fast they scarcely sound like separate words. "We started hanging out pretty soon after Irresistible opened, and things just...changed, slowly. Until we weren't friends anymore."

Finn nods, leaning closer to her again, and seeming to sense his trepidation Rose goes on. "We had a million reasons for why we didn't tell. A fear that if we ever broke up it may affect other friendships. A determination that no matter when we did tell, everyone would be pissed we didn't say something sooner. It all sounds stupid now, but at the time it felt scary."

Rey feels a stab of hurt, and thinks of Ben's words in the hallway. She lets her empathy stretch to fit this moment. They were scared, just like she had been. They were uncertain, and the longer they hesitated the deeper they dug themselves, just like her and Ben.

She understands it. More deeply than any hurt she might feel on the surface. In this moment, she makes sure that the understanding and not the hurt is her compass.

"But we aren't expecting to break up any time soon," Finn finally pipes up, voice resolute. "So everyone should know. And Rose is probably gonna be moving in with me in the next few months."

There's a collective murmur of wordless approval from the group, a smile from one person, a reassuring shrug from another. Rey, having chosen herself as the self-appointed leader of this otherworldly conversation, feels all the eyes turn to her.

"So uh, yeah," she offers lamely. "Anything anyone else wants to mention?"

"Zorii and I are also dating," Poe throws out, and Zorii rolls her eyes behind his back, "I know there isn't any betrayal of friendship involved in the withholding of that information, or anything, but I figured it was worth mentioning. We are not yet in a committed relationship but like each other a lot."

"Even though he hasn't gone on any other dates in nearly a year and uses half of my sweater drawer to keep stuff at my trailer," Zorii adds tersely, arms crossed.

"We can...discuss that at another time," Poe says without looking at her, and her ire weakens, arms sliding down to her sides.

"Phaz and I are having a baby." The words explode forth from Hux's lips so suddenly it's like a dam burst. Phasma sighs, clearly annoyed that this is the moment he chose for the big reveal, but simply smiles indulgently at her husband's poor communication and nods. 

"I had imagined I'd be telling you at a more carefully chosen time, but," Phasma runs a hand over her husband's fiery hair, "yep."

It's the good news they all needed to break the spell over the table. "Congratulations!" Finn cries, and Rey looks over to see the happy gaze Ben is training on his best friend. Hux has managed to look bashful, bless his emotionally stunted heart, and Phasma begins to chatter away answering the questions that get volleyed at her.

When the moment fades and conversation peters out once more, Rey speaks one last time. 

"So that was...a lot," she feels Ben shake with a laugh next to her, "and despite my determination to make that discussion happen, I want tonight to be _fun_." She looks over at him, trying to hide her lingering desperation for him to have a good time, the sliver of frustration that all of this had to go down tonight, of all nights, when all she wanted was for him to feel alive, and carefree.

Of course, because it's _Ben,_ he can see all of that in her eyes. "It will be," he murmurs, into the private space between them, then turns to the table, "All of this can be hashed out at another time, but for now, let's uh, just try to enjoy this."

Everyone agrees around them, and Poe hops off to get more food, Hux disappers with intent to get an entire pitcher of margaritas plus a Sprite for his wife, Zorii asks Rose a question about clementine orange growing season. Rey and Ben turn back to one another.

"And now," she sighs, "all I want to do is drink and dance and hit up that karaoke room in the back so we can duet 'Love is A Battlefield.'"

He gives her a pained expression, which looks even more pitiful with the addition of the moody eyeliner. "No karaoke, please," he begs. "Drinking and dancing, okay. Birdbath?"

She whuffs a laugh, then another, then lets out a string of silent giggles as his smile stretches wider. "Birdbath," she chokes out.

After another round of drinks and a few more songs, Finn insists she dance with him when Footloose comes on. She can see in his anxious gaze that he has ulterior motives. 

They spend the duration of the song, and four more, shimmying with the lowest effort possible, but really discussing all that they both felt and feared and refused to admit to themselves all those past months. As she listens to his reasons and relays her own, she glances back at Ben. Ben, whose first reaction to the revelation of Finn's secret was to encourage understanding. To encourage trust, that her friend's emotions and responses were as valid as her own. 

She turns back to her friend in the midst of mutual forgiveness, and smiles.

Five margaritas later, with a belly full of bagel bites and a banana split, Rey lures Ben back to the dance floor. He stands barely swaying to the music, as she dances aggressively, not with him, but _at_ him. Her face is a tableau of emotional extremes as she lip syncs to Bonnie Tyler. 

** _Up where the mountains meet the heavens above,_ **

Shr thrusts her arms overhead and lowers them in a slow, dramatic arc.

** _Out where the lightning splits the sea,_ **

Her arms swing out like Moses, parting the waters for the Israelites to pass. Ben's eyes squeeze shut and his body wracks with unbridled laughter.

** _I could swear there is someone somewhere watching me,_ **

She rotates her body back and forth, hands cupped like binoculars over her eyes, then held flat against her brow.

** _Through the wind and the chill and the rain,_ **

Legs shuffling right and left as she rubbed her arms, pretending to be chilled. 

** _And the storm and the flood,_ **

An aggressive spin and wiggling arms,

** _I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood!_ **

Arms thrown behind her, torso thrust forward, head tipped back in a gesture of submission to this mystical hero's erotic power over her.

Ben staggers towards her, looping an arm around her arched torso, drawing her against his body as the female vocals wail and the chorus begins anew. 

** _I need a hero!_ **

They gyrate back and forth, bodies pressed as close together as possible, foreheads meeting. Her eyes close, an open mouthed smile plastered on her face, and she can feel his gaze on her even after she can't see it, even through the drinks that have made her loose-limbed and feverish.

"Will you hold out for me til the morning light?" He asks, echoing the lyrics, and she opens her eyes to see the euphoria on his face.

Another new expression she's never seen him make. Another one she'll _never_ get enough of. 

"Are you strong and fast? And fresh from the fight?" She kisses him sloppily, and their tongues twine as he nods. 

"And larger than life," he adds, and she shoots him a gaze like molten metal, glancing around before wedging a hand between them and gliding her sweaty palm over the front of his slacks. 

"I already knew that part." She croons against his cheek, and the throb of lust that grabs her, making her pulse race and her breaths quicken, is reflected in his eyes. 

Phasma and Hux are about to leave. Ben asks them for a ride home, agreeing to leave his car in the parking lot overnight, and he and Rey clamber into the backseat, silent. The way he looks at her makes her want to do much more indecent things than just give his cock a passing touch on the dark, smoky dance floor. 

She manages to restrain herself. But they don't take their eyes off each other the entire drive.

\-------

His bedroom is nearly pitch black. 

Rey had always suspected as much, with the two dense cedar trees right outside the lone window. They don't bother turning the lights on as they stumble through his front door and around the corner. Ben seems to barely have the presence of mind to lock it before tearing at his belt. Rey's already unzipped her dress and pushed it to the floor.

In the heavy darkness of his room, he murmurs to her, "I want to make you feel good," his hand slowly searching til it finds her head, then slides gently down to cup her jaw. She tilts into his touch, just enough that his thumb brushes her lips, and she takes it into her mouth, sucking. He gasps. 

Her teeth dig into the pad of his thumb and he must feel her nod, so he pulls his hand reluctantly away to push down the last layer of fabric between them, her sheer, soaked underwear. He strokes her a long time, listening to her gasps and hiccups as he moves his fingers just right, as she shifts to let his fingers press deeper, as she leans to kiss his chest. 

She pushes his hands gently away, and nudges him backwards til she hears him softly land on the bed. She shivers.

There's something so hot about being left to imagine his every expression and reaction. She has to use every other time they've done this as a basis to picture how he must look, and how he must feel right now. She slides carefully up the bed, finding all the landmarks of his body as she goes, and without another second wasted, sinks down on him.

She rides him with a soft determination, breathing harshly, her hands braced on his chest. His thumbs strum her nipples, harder when it finally drags a broken moan from her, and his hips buck up, determined to get deeper. He verbalizes as much, so she stops her rhythm for a moment to just bear down on him, to let them both feel the depth to which he has known the inside of her, and her gasp is mirrored by his own.

She leans back on her hands, meaning his fingers must slide from her breasts, but he finds them a new home, some holding her lips open while others slide relentlessly across her clit.

She can't bear that onslaught of pleasure without moving, without dragging him in and out of her again, ignoring the burn in his muscles and the swimming in her head and she doesn't even realize she's talking until he moans below her, and then her own words register to her own ears.

"No more secrets, I want everybody to know. We belong to each other." Her words cut short when he sits up, pulls her parallel to him so their chests press together, and uses one hand to guide her hips, working over him, back and forth until the maddening pressure within her starts to build. She begins to tighten up.

"I'm the only one who gets to make you feel like this," he breathes into her mouth, and she hears the awe in his voice, pictures the look on his face. It makes her whimper. 

"You're the only one who ever has," her voice has gone high, pitched to match her moans, "and, and-" some small corner of her brain tries to stop her from saying it but it's too late, she's drunk and it's true and the absolute darkness makes her feel reckless, "and you're the only one who ever will again, for the rest of my life." 

He lets out a hoarse shout and slams her down on him, grinding on her clit so perfectly as she feels him begin to pulse inside her. "I love you." He gasps out against her collarbone, and she grabs his hair as she finally falls over the edge, all the tension cresting before pleasure vibrates out from her center, robbing every last inch of her body of its rigidity. "I love you too," she whispers, into the soft touch of his hair against her mouth, and she hears him exhale, hard, in response.

Soon she's gone pliant and sleepy. He doesn't even pull out of her, just presses down with one broad hand spread across her back, until she's lain against his chest. 

He pulls a blanket over them. Rey imagines from above, how they must look just now. She nuzzles into his sweat-slicked chest. 

She feels the last link slide into place, as they fall asleep together. The last link in the chain, of the life she's waited so long to finally live.

Chains don't normally feel like freedom. But this one does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MAY or MAY NOT have based Zorii's dress on the one Keri Russell wore in the final scene of Burn This but you can't prove anything ok bye


	21. Making Good

Ben's barely looking where he's going as he rounds the corner, a stack of order forms clutched in his fist. He's embarrassed to admit that he's been spending so much time at the tasting room, and so little time at the warehouse, that he can scarcely keep track of what equipment they've purchased and why. 

Nothing a highly anxious explanation from Mitaka shouldn't clear up. He can hear the man's soft, tremulous voice nearby so he turns another corner, seeking it.

Just as he's taking a breath to call out his name, a different voice -this one infinitely deeper and more rough- speaks in a subdued tone.

Ben stumbles to a stop.

He knows that voice. It's one that normally bellows, normally rings out across whatever space it occupies, demanding attention and acquiescence.

To hear it speaking with such restraint sets off an alarm in his head.

"And anyways, when I spoke to them a while ago, they said its days were numbered."

"When...was that?" Mitaka asks uncertainty.

"Oh, soon after the move-in. I needed a full inspection, to be certain the place was truly up to snuff. Electrician, exploratory pest control, plumbers, construction. I received a thorough report on the entire building. One can't be too careful," Snoke drawls.

"Hmm. And you...didn't find any issues?" Mitaka's voice trembles.

"None beyond what Solo also identified. The need to upgrade the plumbing. And to rehang a few of the doors."

"But what about the-" Mitaka's voice cuts off abruptly.

"What?" Snoke demands, not a second later. "The _what_?"

"You...must have heard. About the power outage? At the ice cream parlor...n-next door? Apparently it was due to degradation in the wiring. It was recent, the night before they were having...something. Some huge event."

All at once, Mitaka's train of thought slams into Ben head-on.

His stomach tightens in fury. His papers wrinkle as his hands begin to clench.

There's a long pause. Too long.

"What's your point?" Snoke clarifies.

"Just that...you said you got a report on the whole building?"

"Yes."

"So," Mitaka infers, and Ben can feel from here that he doesn't want to say it, but knows without a doubt Snoke's presence compels him to, "so they told you? About the bad wiring?" 

"Yes." 

"Okay." Mitaka says immediately, evasively. 

"What more did you want to say?" _Another uncomfortable pause_, "Out with it, boy."

"You knew? And you, you didn't think it wise to, to warn her, maybe? That the fuse was likely to blow soon?"

Ben wants so badly to burst into the room during the long, inexorable silence that follows. He wonders what sort of gaze Snoke is leveling, at the shyest, quietest man Ben knows.

"Dopheld, my money, and my time, and my expertise have not been invested in the ice cream parlor? Have they?"

"N-No, sir."

"And the bad wiring was not present in First Order's electrical box, was it?"

In the silence, Ben pictures Mitaka shaking his head.

"Where is my investment, Dopheld?"

"First Order, sir."

"That's right, Therefore, the fruits of my labor, the knowledge I discovered, they are not meant to benefit the parlor, are they?"

"I guess not."

"None of this is for her," Snoke spits, that final word so acidic it sounds like an insult all on its own. "It's for this, the business _you_ help run. I'd think you would be grateful for my loyalty, rather than question it." He sighs, his hard-soled shoes clacking as he takes a few steps on the concrete, "But that's the problem with young people these days. You're all idealists. It would be too easy to make the right choice: to act in your own self-interest. Instead,you all have to torture yourselves, wondering how everyone else is affected." He scoffs. "A waste of time."

Ben tunes out the rest of their conversation, Mitaka's platitudes and Snoke's condescension. He couldn't keep paying attention no matter how hard he tried.

He's too blinded by the wall of red rage before his eyes.

Snoke _knew_. He knew all along, that at some point, the electricity would blow in the other box. He knew Rey and Rose would be affected. 

He _didn't care_ because First Order would not be.

Ben thinks back on that night, everyone showing up, doing everything they could to rescue Rey's product for her biggest night in December.

All the panic and scrambling could have been avoided. If only Snoke wasn't such a selfish bastard.

Ben crunches the order forms in his fist more fully, if only for something to do, some way to channel the smallest thread of this hot ball of anger that's sunk into his belly.

It's been years, since Snoke's seeming support, and his aforementioned loyalty, turned sour and became manipulation. Ben scarcely remembers a time when the looming threat of Snoke's opinion was not a frequent voice in his head. Throughout all that time, Ben had dealt with it. Tolerated it. 

But he's always been able to tolerate being hurt. 

What he will not tolerate is the same being done to Rey.

\-------

It's a cold morning, and Rey wakes up with a tiny shiver, reaching out for Ben's heat and finding his side of the bed empty.

She cracks open her eyes to the sight of his broad, pale back. His elbows are on his knees, his head hanging down. He's precariously seated on the very edge of the bed.

He's so still she could swear time had frozen. She watches for a moment, then finally croaks, "What's wrong?"

"Hux's dad died."

She takes a breath, and feels her body sink more heavily into the mattress. "When?"

"An hour ago, or so. Phasma texted."

It was easy, for a while, to pretend Hux's dad living a month, then two months past his expected survival date meant he might be okay. Hux himself seemed to have eased into that. His dad had made it through the wedding, made it to Thanksgiving, and for a little while, they all thought he might make it to Christmas.

Instead, twelve days shy, he's gone.

"Service is on Tuesday." Ben adds, looking over his shoulder at her.

She wonders what she looks like, from his view. She pictures it, her body looking small among his king size bed and gray sheets. Her hair wild, red lines creased into her face from hours spent pressed to the pillow. She wonders what he's hoping she'll say, in this moment.

"Is it making you think about Han?" She asks softly, and from the wince that passes over his face, she realizes she was right.

He turns away, looks back at the window, at the thick mass of pine needles and branches pressed against it. "If he died, and we left things the way they are now, I think I would have a really hard time forgiving myself."

"Even though all of it isn't your fault?"

"Even though all of it isn't my fault."

"Well," she sits up, letting the sheets fall away from her, and scoots across the bed. She presses her bare chest to his back, looping her arms around his torso and pressing her hand over his heart, "let's get through the service. And then let's see what we can do about that."

"About what?"

"About the way things are now."

He slides his hand over hers. "You know, you don't have to-"

"I want to. I always want to help you, Ben. So long as you'll have me."

"I'll always have you," he whispers back.

Rey's still not used to these promises, these words of permanence. They've said _I love you_, but for all the loaded meaning of those words, there's no temporal quality to them.

Rey squeezes him tighter, trying to contain the tremble of relief she feels, at the idea that she can stop worrying. Worrying about whether the biggest thing, the best good thing in her life, might go away.

She presses a kiss to his temple then wonders if she has a suitable black dress.

\-------

On Tuesday, she finds herself standing, gaping at the middle bathroom sink. 

She stared at the backs of dozens of strangers' heads throughout the whole service, and didn't recognize the only one that should have been familiar to her. 

Leia grumbles, her purse perched on the edge of her own sink as she rummages around in it. Rey's about a thousand percent sure she's looking for her lipstick.

She's seen Leia carefully reapply it, after eating an ice cream cone, half a dozen times. 

It's _always_ buried at the bottom of her bag. Leia _always_ grouches like she expected it to be magically atop the tangle of six-month old receipts and empty Purell bottles floating around in there.

She finally finds it and lets out a triumphant cry, then pulls off the cap. Her eyes land on her own reflection and remain for about half a second before they slide over to the still, silent person two sinks over.

The second cry she lets out then is less of victory, and more of shock.

"Rey?"

A weary, soft answering smile. "Hey, Leia."

"I didn't realize you would be here," she admits, eyes darting away for a moment as she follows through with dabbing on some lipstick.

"I uh," Rey begins, and reaches for a paper towel, "I ended up doing the dessert for Hux and Phasma's wedding. We've become friends since then." Leia nods for a moment, and Rey inhales. "And even if I wasn't, I would have been here anyway. Because of Ben."

Leia drops her lipstick back in her purse then, after a moment processing Rey's words, stiffens.

"What?" She says softly. "Because of..."

Rey swallows down the feeling in her stomach, like a pit of live snakes, and mutters, "We're uh, we're together."

Leia stares at her for a second, assessing. "I had a feeling, at Thanksgiving, that there was something more you hadn't told us."

"How so?"

"Just the," Leia's hand waves through the air, "strength of your connection. The wordless glances. That low way you spoke to each other. Even though it wasn't romantic, it was...intimate." 

Rey shrugs, unwilling to either agree or claim that of course it's easy to say that_ now_, when she's confessed to it.

Instead she just shifts on her feet, fingers drumming against the white porcelain lip of her sink, and stares at the paisley pattern on the tile floor.

"I'd like to talk to you, if you want to sit down." Rey jerks her thumb towards the powder room that lies between the bathroom and the rest of the church. There are some dusty gray tweed chairs in a corner, a low coffee table between them.

Leia's brow furrows, but she doesn't question Rey as they both sit down. Rey fights not to make too much direct eye contact. Ben talked to her about that.

"This is about Ben." Rey says, before Leia can ask. Her wrinkled, worn hand tightens on the armrest.

"What about him?"

"Thanksgiving is something I really wish I hadn't witnessed," Rey feels her own expression harden, "but I don't want to think about what might have happened, what might have been said, if I hadn't been there."

"I wish you hadn't seen it either." Leia's voice is suddenly, viscerally _tired_.

Rey sighs. "Since then, Ben's told me a lot. Given me a lot of context, and history, to help me understand why that night went down the way it did."

"So you hate me now?" Leia mutters sardonically.

"No, I don't. But I think you have a lot to apologize for."

Leia's eyes dart over to her, then. "Do I?"

Rey clenches her jaw. "I want to be honest with you here, and I hope that you will take me seriously, and understand that what I say is not said to hurt you, but because I believe it's the truth."

That steely gaze, the one that built empires, created a sterling reputation and earned Michelin stars, assesses her. Leia finally nods.

"It's clear to me that you are a proud family." Rey sighs, "Ben included. Uncomfortable admitting when they've done things wrong. Seemingly because doing things wrong, even with the best of intentions, is always treated like a mortal sin." Rey closes her eyes for a moment, struggling to control her anger, to control the pettiness that wants to creep out of her. "Like I said. I believe in your own mind your intentions always made sense. But that doesn't mean you didn't make mistakes. That doesn't mean you didn't do things wrong." She brushes out the wrinkles in her skirt, and meets that hard gaze. "Because you did."

Leia opens her mouth, but Rey's been subconsciously rehearsing this, she didn't even realize how lucidly it was all laid out in her mind until now that it's finally breaking free of her, and she doesn't want to stop it.

"Your pride may have led you to feel justified in the way you treated him, back then." She blinks, thinking of that black and white photo on Ben's bedroom wall, of that skinny, vulnerable teenager. "It led you to think you were doing the right thing. But now, your pride will grant you no more comfort. All it gives you now is separation from your only child. Your pride is...wrapped up in a sad mess of fading memories. It colors the past in a way even you must know is unfair."

Rey looks up finally, away from her fists on her knees, and sees Leia's wet eyes bent towards her own lap, too.

"He was suffering. He felt worthless. And instead of seeing his own pride for the pain it really was, you wrote it off. As angsty rebellion, as some irredeemable flaw. And so he began to see himself the way you saw him. Now I am the one trying to put him back together." Rey takes a long, slow breath. "But there is only so much I can do. Only so many ways I can help, before I come up against something that can only be helped by you."

She feels the bile rise in her throat and forces herself to say what she knows she must. "Ben's told me Han's health isn't great. He says you know you'll probably outlive your husband." Leia lets out a harsh gasp. "Leia, you can either die alone, or you can apologize, and have a shot at leaving this world with your son there to say goodbye."

She rises from her chair, the bile winning out, her eyes stinging. "You know what I've been through," her voice is shaking, "so you know which one I would pick, if I got a choice."

She rushes back into the bathroom, falling to her knees in the stall and retching. 

She only vomits a little, the wave of emotion that brought it on subsides fast, and as she rinses her mouth, she looks up to see Leia standing in the doorway. She's never looked more small, or more grey.

Rey, lipstick smeared across her mouth, water still running, meets her gaze in the mirror. "What?"

"I-He deserves someone, who protects and defends him like this." 

_Because I didn't_, Rey hears the ghostly words float between them. 

Leia turns away, and takes three steps, before Rey croaks softly.

"He deserves his mother, too."

Leia doesn't turn back around. But she stops for a moment. Her shoulders sink another fraction, and then Rey watches as she straightens, lengthens. Carries herself with that iron grace that seems so endemic to her. 

Rey fixes her lipstick, and her running eyeliner too. She listens to her deep breaths echo off of the tile walls, unwilling to open her eyes, to let the sight of herself kick-start a replay of that conversation.

Instead she nearly runs out of the bathroom, across the church parking lot into the reception hall. Hux's mom is in the kitchen in the back, keeping her hands busy, her eyes vacant. 

Rey drifts next to her and begins arranging cheese on a plate.

\-------

Finn's at a corner table alone, eating a spiral slice of a turkey wrap and some grapes. Ben watches as his hand twitch towards his phone a few times, then he thinks better of it. Funeral etiquette is uncharted territory.

Ben approaches. He tries his best to just _stroll_ and not _stalk_. Rey talked to him about that. 

"Hey, man," he folds himself into an open chair, and Finn nods to him, taking another huge mouthful. They survey the quietly murmuring crowd together. "Can I uh, can I talk to you for a minute?

Finn freezes mid-bite. His eyes widen and he surveys Ben slowly, carefully, as though trying to detect some threat. Ben does his best to look open and relaxed, without starting to explain himself before they're even alone.

Finn buys himself a moment by chewing and taking a sip of his iced tea, then wipes his hands on a napkin.

"Yeah." He says finally. 

"Alone?" Ben presses.

His eyes widen again. Another long sip of the iced tea. Another calculating glance.

"'Kay."

In the hall, Ben opens some unmarked door. There's a narrow, carpeted room filled with folded chairs and tables, three abstract stained glass windows raining colored fragments of light down onto everything. As they step in and Finn closes the door behind them, the kaleidoscope falls over his face and shoulders.

"What's this about?" His voice is clipped.

"It's about Rey." Ben says, then winces at his opening statement. Finn's eyes widen for a third time, and Ben rushes to explain. "Something...happened, at my warehouse the other day. And part of it has to do with her."

Finn slides his hands into his pockets. "So why are you talking to me about it?"

"I'm...I'm not sure that telling her will actually help anything." Ben forces his eyes away from the windows and onto the only other pair in the room. "You know her better than anyone else here. Probably better than anyone else anywhere. So I want your advice."

Finn blinks for a moment, then snorts a little, dragging his shoe against the carpet. 

"What?"

"It's just," Finn begins, shrugging, "you don't strike me as the kind of man who asks for advice very often."

"I don't." Ben confirms immediately, then forces himself to soften his shoulders. "But this is important to me. She's important to me."

Finn stares at him.

"I love her." 

It's the first time he's said it to someone besides the woman herself. It makes him unspeakably nervous, but that fizzles as he sees the slow smile rise on Finn's face. 

"Tell me what's going on, Solo." Finn declares.

Ben takes a long breath. "Snoke knew about the power outage." _The wide eyes are back._ "Or, he knew it was likely to happen. You know Snoke, right? My..investor, and mentor for a while I guess, he was at our opening night, and anyways. He's not a very good man, which I've always known, but this." Ben stops for a moment, swallowing to tamp down the rage edging into his tone. "This is different."

"Because she's the target and not you."

Ben nods. "He's had it out for her ever since they first met. I think he could always tell that there was some connection between us. I think he knew what power she could have over me, if we were allowed to get to know each other." He reaches out, tracing his fingers over the chipped wood laminate at the edge of a table . "He was right. I...I've forgiven him for so many of the things he's done to me. Because I think I deserve it," he winces. _This isn't a confessional._ "But she's not. She's good. So persistently good, in a way I've never been."

Finn leans against the wall. "Somehow I doubt that's entirely true."

Ben nods in acknowledgement of the veiled half-compliment. "He wanted to sabotage her. He wanted to hurt her business. _Your_ business. Ruin it for her, maybe. Occupy her so fully with other concerns that she would stop paying attention to me."

Finn rolls his eyes. "Like that would ever happen."

Ben blushes, looking up at the vibrancy of the windows. 

"He had the electricity inspected a while back," Ben begins again, where he should have started all along, "they told him something would happen soon, without a doubt. He told one of my colleagues that since it didn't affect me he wasn't worried. But I know it wasn't just that. He knew it wouldn't hurt me, and he knew it _would_ hurt her."

"But it's still not his _fault_," Finn finishes, following Ben's exact line of thought.

"Yes. And no matter his intentions, things worked out okay for her. I'm not sure she would benefit from knowing, and that's why I can't decide."

Finn's jaw clenches. He runs his tongue over his teeth. 

"You know that whole _commitment to the truth_ thing you guys have going?" Ben nods stiffly. "I think you should tell her." Finn holds up a finger. "But not yet."

His stomach knots. "Why?"

Finn pulls one hand from his pocket, running it over his forehead. "Because there's some other stuff I think you need to do first."

\-------

On Saturday morning they both wake up early, naturally. Rey rouses at precisely 7:26, according to her kitchen clock, and stares at Ben's slack sleeping face for three minutes until a car alarm goes off on the street and his eyes flutter open.

"Hey," she mumbles, voice muzzy from sleep, and he rolls onto his side, sliding his arm under her pillow as she pulls him closer.

"How ya doin?" His voice is all gravel, and she lets out a tiny laugh, huffed into the warm, bare skin of his chest.

"Good." 

"Good." She wraps one arm around his torso. The other is trapped between them, and most of her weight is on it, so she knows she can't stay this way indefinitely. But she'll stay at least until the limb falls asleep. If she can endure it, maybe a little longer than that.

They remain still and intertwined long enough for Rey to start to drift off again.

She knows her alarm will go off soon, they'll need to rush through a shower and breakfast before heading up the road to work, but Rey would always, _always_ rather rush than sacrifice a minute spent like this.

It doesn't shake out that way, though.

Ben's phone trills from where it's shoved under his pillow. She reaches up with the arm stretched across him, retrieving it and clumsily placing it into his proffered hand without looking.

"Hello?" He says, still laying down, still holding her close, phone pressed to his ear.

Rey hears a familiar female rasp say uncertainly, "Ben?"

She hears his slight intake of breath. "Yeah, mom?"

"I, uh..."

His body's gone entirely still. "What's up?"

"There's just some stuff I want to say." Now Rey goes still, too. Leia's voice is cagey.

"Like what?" 

Suddenly a deeper voice cuts in. "We're...sorry."

Rey's heart stutters. Han sounds immeasurably sad.

After a long stretch of silence on both ends, Leia again: "I'm sorry."

"For Thanksgiving?" Ben's so tentative, his voice somehow embodies walking on eggshells, treading lightly, and a million other metaphors for care borne out of fear. 

"For...everything." Leia says haltingly, her voice growing even more rough, and it's then that Rey slides back, knowing this isn't a conversation for her, even if Ben is okay with her hearing it.

His big, round, just barely hopeful eyes follow her as she slides some shorts and a t-shirt on, as she grabs a glass of water from the kitchen, hefts Beebee under one arm, and opens the door to sit on the stairs.

Her last glimpse of him before she closes the door is of him turned away, staring out at the waves and the smattering of people on the beach. 

Bebe settles right into her lap, curling up to sleep. Rey takes a gulp of her water and lets her eyes slide shut. She swallows in tiny sips, and with each one, she repeats to someone, maybe Leia, maybe the cosmic powers, maybe herself, _thank you, thank you, thank you._

\-------

Ben winces at the typical, horrifying squeak when he opens her door. "We only have five minutes before we have to go." Rey's gaze darts over from where she was staring into the neighbor's yard, and Beebee's head raises off her lap with a soft trill. 

She smiles softly. "I'll get dressed quick. Make some tea once we get down there and I'll bring over croissants." 

He nods and shifts his body to let her pass. He's already in his jeans and t-shirt, so he watches her as she rinses her face, brushes her teeth, and begins riffling through her hideously disorganized dresser. 

He spent the last two minutes before he called her in here sitting on the couch and staring into space, wondering if he should tell her. 

Now that she's here, alive and present, humming softly to herself and pulling a green long-sleeve t shirt over her wiry arms, he no longer wonders.

"They want to spend Christmas with us."

She freezes with the shirt halfway down her body, face still caught up in the fabric, then tugs it down the rest of the way. He can't see her face, but her left hand fidgets with the corner of floral contact paper, peeling away from the front of the dresser drawer.

"Do you want to?"

He's silent for so long that she turns around. He opens his mouth a few times, then finally just shrugs. "I don't know. After everything I just talked about with them...kind of. But I'm also really scared that something like Thanksgiving will happen again, and everything'll just...," he glances down to the floor, where Beebee is busy purring like a motor while she does figure eights around his ankles, "it'll just be like it was before."

"Bad."

"Yeah, bad."

Rey pulls her sleeves over her hands, fighting off the chill of the December 21st air, and takes a breath. "What if..." he looks up at her, "what if there were a different way to do it?"

"To do what?"

"To see them on Christmas? Our way."

"How?"

"Is it ok if I talk to Leia?" She asks him softly, and he stares at her for a moment before nodding. She crosses the room, cups his jaw in her hand, strokes her thumb over his cheekbone. 

He trusts her enough to let her speak to his mother. Sight unseen, plans unknown. He just trusts her, wholeheartedly. It feels like relief.

"Yes." 

They hold hands on their way to work.

\-------

Ben's halfway through branding their name and logo into the new set of mini novelty take-home barrels when he hears a voice ringing through from the tasting room. "Hello?"

"Dameron, man, back here!"

Poe walks slowly back to the storage room, with that awkward hesitation of a restaurant customer who turns down the hall unsure if it will lead to the kitchen or the restrooms.

Ben sets the branding iron onto a baking tray he borrowed from Finn and shoves his hair back, doffing his gloves to shake Poe's hand.

"What was it you wanted to discuss?" Poe says, ever-direct, his analytical eyes clearly trying to glean something from Ben's own.

"This is gonna seem a little weird, but," Ben sighs, "you lived in Supremacy Towers in college, didn't you?"

Poe blinks in surprise. "Yeah. Who told you that?"

"Finn. Did you uh, did you know that the guy who owns that building is one of my investors?"

Poe's face quirks. "Snoke? He...invests in small businesses?"

"Sometimes." Ben mutters, evasive. "Did you uh...did you have any problems with your security deposit?" Poe's face alights in recognition. "Finn said you told him a story one time? About how you'd taken pictures to help find someone to take over your lease, but then after the cleaning crew came through, and the new guy moved in, everything was all fucked up?"

"Yeah, yeah." Poe says, leaning towards him a little, clearly keen to retell his tale of woe. "The day he showed up, that guy sent me all these pictures and asked me what the hell happened. New holes in the wall where I had never hung pictures, huge scratches in the floor, damage to the appliances. I think a few of the racks in the closet had been disassembled."

"So then Snoke kept your deposit to cover the repairs, right?" 

"Yeah. I was in Spain, for study abroad. It was months before I even found out he never sent the deposit back. There was a 90-day window to contest withholding of the deposit. So by the time I was back, I couldn't fight it."

"You ever talk to anyone else who had that issue?"

"Oh my god," Poe says loudly, leaning against the wall, "tons of people. Tons of people who were in California the entire time, but didn't know about the University's housing protection services, so when their money got kept they didn't realize they had ways to fight it."

"You know of anyone else who has proof like you do?"

Poe furrows his brow for a moment. "At least two others. Guys who played on the soccer team with me. But there was a rumor it happened to dozens of people. That building is huge, hundreds of students must live there." 

"You think you could...reach out? Quietly? Find out who else had this happen?"

Poe squints at him, and Ben just waits, for Poe to suss out his inner thoughts. "What are you trying to do to Snoke? If he's an investor, wouldn't you want to...I don't know, protect him?"

"He's a really bad person," Ben begins, and struggles with how much more to say, how much more to admit. "There are other layers to him besides just as an investor."

Ben sighs, realizing that as long as Poe keeps looking at him that way, the truth will come out eventually, so he sits back on a barrel and goes on. 

"Remember all the years we talked about, at the prom thing? The years when I disappeared, and I told you things weren't going well?"

Poe nods somberly.

"That's when I first met him. He...pushed me away from my family. He didn't cause it, just encouraged what was already happening. He said he believed in me. He cheered me on. He helped separate me from anyone else whose approval I was counting on, and then he filled that void himself." Ben crosses his arms. "Until he didn't anymore. Until what I was doing was no longer good enough, until _I_ wasn't enough, and then it became the same pattern as my parents. Try harder, fall short of the expectation somehow, get angry, and try again. Unfortunately for him, I picked up enough skills along the way that I actually made something good." Ben gestures around them with an open hand.

Poe smirks. But it's a different smirk, not sarcastic, not mischievous. Almost proud.

"And he tried to hurt Rey's business," Ben tacks on, "by withholding very important information. Thankfully it didn't work out the way he was hoping, she solved it. But he tried." His arms cross again. "And that was the cherry on top of this whole fucked-up deal."

"So...Supremacy Towers?"

Ben nods. "I know a city prosecutor." He slips his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling out the business card he's had waiting there since he spoke to her. "Amylin Holdo. A family friend of ours. I saw her a few days ago, we had coffee, and I told her about what Finn had told me. She'd like to speak to you. And anyone else you think of."

Poe flips the card between his fingers rhythmically. "She really think there could be a case here?"

Ben bites his lip, considering it. 'If there were _no_ chance of a case, she would've told me. She's not afraid to let people down."

Poe snorts and little and nods. He stares down at the card for a long moment. "I'll talk to her."

Ben tries to make his exhalation of relief as silent as possible. "Thanks, dude." 

"You're welcome."

"This really, really means a lot to me." Ben presses.

"You're standing up for yourself," Poe says it so plainly that it stops Ben in his tracks, setting his gloves back down where he had picked them up. He looks over at him. "Her too. But standing up for _yourself,_ I think, is the harder one for you."

Ben swallows hard, startled as ever by the veracity of Poe's insight, and nods. 'Yeah, you're right." 

They share a glance and a smile, and then Poe asks if the new honey malt whiskey is ready for tasting, and the tone of their conversation fades away into something easy, something fun. Rey spies them through the shared window and skips over to say hi, Poe not breathing a word of what was said, somehow able to sense, as he is with everything else, that Ben wasn't ready for her to know. Ben sends her back to the parlor with a brief kiss, and awaits the day when he can once again be honest with her.

\-------

The air is damp when Rey opens the door. 

"Hey," she thought she might have to muster some pleasantness, but instead, the sight of Leia with her arms around a massive purple salad bowl and Han awkwardly toting a poinsettia makes some genuine warmth bloom in her. 

"Merry Christmas," they reply in unison, then look at each other and roll their eyes, and _yep, they're definitely married._

When they come into Rey's apartment, she takes a moment to try and see the place through their eyes.

The kitchen island has been cleared, of its usual pile of half-opened mail and Rey's parakeet-themed fruit bowl she got at a garage sale in Venice Beach. Instead it's got a red tablecloth on it, where the still-warm dinner rolls and roasted zucchini and charcuterie board rest. Ben's just taking the chicken out of the oven, setting it on a trivet alongside all the other dishes, and Rey imagines he's grateful for a moment to collect himself, instead of having nothing to occupy his hands when they first walk in.

"Hey son." Han says first, and as Ben shucks the oven mitts Han steps forward, hand held out. Ben bypasses it and claps his dad a on the back a little, a sort of half-hug.

Leia gets a quick, barely-there kiss on the cheek. Rey gets hugs from both of them.

It's awkward at first. Ben finally remembers to put on the Christmas Classics playlist after the lack of background noise sets them all on edge. They brought a cafe table over from the parlor: it's all neon-green wire and plastic. The chair proves to be an issue for Han's troublesome back, but a quick couch cushion transplant onto the chair appears to resolve that.

Eventually they manage to find neutral topics that lead to good conversation: the stupidest Halloween costume each of them has ever worn, their opinion on a few new movies that have been out for the holiday season. At Rey's insistence there are no gifts, so instead they each recount the stuff they bought for their employees.

It does not escape Rey's notice that they are four almost comically different personalities, and yet they all ended up as business owners. Though Ben claims that Han's garage is a loose collective of independent mechanics more than anything else; Han just happens to own the building and is always loitering around. That fits the bill, in Rey's opinion. 

They play the Name Game, and Leia gets Miley Cyrus. The blue Post-it note flutters where it's stuck to her forehead, every time she turns or moves.

A heated debate sparks over whether her answer of "Hannah Montana" is considered correct.

"_She's_ not Hannah!" Rey exclaims, managing to rein in her wild gesticulation with her glass before the spiced wine sloshes over onto the floor. "That's the name of her character."

"But that character was the reason she became famous," Ben insists, "no one knew who she was before then, therefore Hannah Montana was her public image for a long time."

"You do realize that her true existence was never a real secret," Han chimes in, still pulling tiny pieces of chicken off the bird sitting in the middle of the table and popping them into his mouth, "they weren't trying to fool the actual public. From day one the show is about how she has a double life."

"I wouldn't exactly call it a double life," Rey rebuts, "she's not a KGB spy gone deep undercover."

Han points a finger at her. "We have no way of actually confirming that."

"The point is," Rey says, after a sip of her wine, planting her elbows on the table, "we cannot accept character names in place of real names. If my card said Will Smith but I guessed The Fresh Prince, that would not be acceptable."

"I would accept that!" Ben laughs, hands thrown up in the air, "Just as I accept Hannah Montana!"

"Well you're wrong!" Rey fires back, jabbing the heel of her hand into his shoulder, to which he pretends to be mortally wounded. Beebee, of course, rushes over, meowing in fear as Ben collapses towards the carpet, to which Rey quickly points out the dozens of times she's been _truly injured_ and the cat couldn't be bothered to even give her a glance.

"Thank you for your support, Ben," Leia says dryly, "but I think I can stand to lose this game."

Ben and Han stop their antics to look at her. Rey blinks and looks between them.

"You always want to win." Han mumbles, and Leia straightens in her seat. 

"Hmm. Well, things change."

Rey lets the myriad meanings of that statement sink in for all of them. "Who needs their wine topped off?"

Three glasses get raised towards her.

"I'm not drinking any more unless you call it by its proper name," Ben insists, eyes gleaming, and Rey would be mad at him for mocking her, only the night's gone so much better than she expected, she can hold nothing against him.

Rey sighs, reaching for the ladle and cocking out her hip, "Who would like more glogg?"

"Glogg me up, baby." Leia drawls, which sends them all into a titter, and soon they're circling the small tree they set up against the far wall, with a box of ornaments Rey picked up from Ben's parents house.

Han traces a ceramic Santa in sunglasses and red swim trunks and mutters, "Amilyn got this one for you when you were a kid."

"Oh!" Leia exclaims, "Speaking of Amilyn. She wanted to thank you. She said she got permission from the DA for the case. Looks like they'll be charging him."

Rey's brow furrows, repeating Leia's sentence in her mind, gleaning no further information the second time. "Charging who? With what, a _crime_?"

When she turns to look at Ben, the burn of annoyance immediately kicks up in her chest. His normally pale face has blanched further.

Han digs his son even deeper.

"Snoke? They really think they can get a guy with that many 'connections' convicted?"

"Snoke?" Rey echoes, the burn of annoyance flaring into a kick of fear and confusion. "Ben?" He stares evenly at her, but says nothing. "Why is Snoke being charged with a crime? And...Amilyn is...thanking you, about it?"

He's still staring, and despite his silence, Rey knows exactly what's running through his head. One of those absurd sweary phrases, like "bitching shitty fuck," or something equally as stupid. She has no idea why uttering those words makes him feel better and yet he always does it.

Or _thinks_ it, at least.

"You didn't tell her? After what he did, to both of you?"

Another string of oddly joined profanities scream through his mind, Rey is sure.

"Both of us?" She takes a short, sharp breath. "Okay. So there's clearly some things I need to know." Ben shifts on his feet, turning his head to look out the windows, though nothing is visible in the darkness. "But right now I just want us to have a nice Christmas. So let's just have some ice cream and we'll talk about this later."

The entire Organa-Solo family stares at her when she's done. She takes a step back towards the kitchen. "What?"

Han snaps out of it first, "Nothing, I just...you're very calm."

"You respond to the potential for conflict very differently from how we do." Leia clarifies.

"Very differently." Ben reiterates. 

"Yeah," Rey confirms, not exactly wanting to admit she knows that but, _yeah, she knows that_. "I didn't always respond to conflict like this either. But like Leia said, things are changing."

Rey breaks the odd moment by retrieving the peppermint rocky road from the freezer. Ben turns on the TV, and they catch the tail end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When her spoon hits the bottom of the bowl, she turns to Han and Leia, who look nice and snuggled up, and politely lays the groundwork for them to leave. Despite the success of the night Ben's eyes are growing weary. This was what she promised: Christmas on their terms, to begin and end when they wanted, to include only what and whom they chose. Time to follow through with that.

The two of them wave from the doorway as his parents leave, then begin cleaning up. The warble of holiday commercials, the volume turned low, accompanies them.

Rey's tiny, rickety dishwasher can fit about half of the dirty plates and mixing bowls, and she breathes a sigh of relief as its low rumble starts up. For the rest, Ben takes up his post at the sink, just like on Thanksgiving, and as she dries the dishes he's washed, she finally brings it up.

"What's happening with Snoke?"

Ben lets his hands run under the water for a moment, watching the way it glances off his cupped palms. "I didn't want to tell you until I had something to show for myself."

She stops drying her blue baking dish. "_Something to show for yourself?_"

"I just," he seems to grope for the words for a moment, then turns the water off, "Forget the dishes for a second. Just come and sit with me."

They take up residence on the couch, only the soft glow of the Christmas tree still illuminating the one big room. 

He tells her everything. Everything she didn't realize was missing, anyway. The true extent of how controlling Snoke has been, lately. His determined effort to keep their businesses from intermingling. And the inspection, and his knowledge of the wiring, and his extremely tactical decision not to say anything. Her gut twists in anger. She tries to hide it from her face, but of course, he knows.

She stays silent throughout. Absorbing, processing. Ben finally gets to the part Leia mentioned earlier, something about forty-three counts of suspected contract fraud, about Poe being a key potential witness.

About how _Ben_, with help from Finn, made it all happen.

When he finally goes quiet, her question is soft. "So if he gets convicted, what does that mean for you? For First Order?"

"Well," he says tiredly, "My contract with him, the one I signed when he gave me the investment capital, stipulates that he be available at all times to assist in decisions, discussions, or negotiations directly related to my business. It's in there more for him than for me. It makes him look benevolent, but it really gives him legal jargon to justify breathing down my neck."

Rey nods in agreement.

"But the contract also has a good faith clause. Also put in there for his benefit. Which states that if either of us cannot fulfill our end of the contract, we will come up with a mutually agreed-upon solution. He wanted an out, in case I started resenting his level of control and involvement. If I don't allow him the amount of input the contract details, then I'm required to work with him to find a solution."

"But instead, you'd be able to use that against him if he gets convicted and can no longer appropriately provide that input," she infers, and he turns to look at her, the corners of his mouth lifting.

"That's the idea, yeah."

"Will that work?" 

"Amilyn thinks so. She said I'll need an attorney. If Snoke's in prison, and can't attend staff meetings, or help choose vendors, or attend events, then I'd say that qualifies for failing to meet his contractual duties. In which case, we have to agree upon a solution. For example, that I return the remaining capital, sign a new contract agreeing to pay him what he is owed, and end our current partnership."

It sounds too good to be true, but so would half of the things in her life, if you told her about them years ago. 

"How are you gonna find an attorney?"

"Already did. Some ancient friend of my grandfather's. Mace, I think his name is." Ben mutters. "My mom is uh, gonna pay for it."

Rey looks up at him, shocked. Shocked that Leia offered, with all her _'think you're drowning and you'll learn to swim'_ rhetoric. Shocked that Ben accepted. He clearly understands all of this, because he takes a breath.

"She wants to help me make my own decisions. Put me in a position of control where I can do so." He sighs, and Rey looks up to see his eyes welling. She tries to hide her surprise. "She said she's making up for lost time. All the chances she missed, to support me. She said I'd never be in this position, if it weren't for her."

Rey bites her tongue for a moment, but as the seconds tick by the truth remains the same. "She's right."

Ben nods. 

"I'm really sorry he tried to hurt your business." He pushes her hair off her cheek and behind her ear, and she leans in to let her forehead touch his.

She shrugs a little. "He could melt every last gallon himself, he still won't get me away from you."

They kiss slow, and long, and soft. "Tonight was really nice." He whispers when they pull back. "Thank you."

"It wasn't all me," she deflects. "You were really present, and patient with them, and you tried hard. You get some credit, too. We made it good."

"We made it good." He whispers back, and she nods into his kiss as their lips meet once more. 

They go to bed, Christmas tree still glowing, dishes forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While that was cute and all, folks if you celebrate Christmas always turn your tree off at night especially if your tree is getting too dry
> 
> That shit will BURN DOWN YOUR HOUSE if you aren't careful
> 
> K, back to your regularly scheduled smut/fluff/angst cocktail.


	22. The Enormity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one, friends.

Ben's phone is vibrating, muffled, under his pillow. He shoves a hand underneath and feels around for it, both relieved and anxious to see Poe's name lighting up the screen.

"Dameron?" He says breathlessly.

"They've just announced the sentencing," Poe speaks in a hush, and Ben can hear in the background the echo of footsteps in a cavernous room. He wonders if Poe's still in the lobby of the courthouse.

"Good news or bad news?" 

"Mixed." Poe says, voice growing more sad.

Ben screws his eyes shut in frustration. "Tell me."

"No jail time."

_Fucking shit._

Ben's free hand clenches into a fist, "But hefty fines. In the millions. It'll cripple him. And-" Poe goes silent.

"And?" 

"And, he has to expunge all of his current contracts. A '_demonstrated history of violating the good faith clauses_' is enough that to this judge, it puts all of Snoke's current business partners in danger." 

Ben freezes, digesting those words for a long moment, blinking in the silence. Then, suddenly, his heart picks up even more, somehow. "_Every_ contract?"

"Every last one, man. He has a year to discuss terms of dissolution with each party involved. By January of next year, he either has to prove he's ended every contract or risk violating the terms of his probation."

An odd half-laugh half-sob shudders out of Ben's chest, "I...I'm..."

"So relieved?" Poe supplies helpfully, and Ben nods even though his friend can't see him.

"Yeah, yeah. It's not what I expected but I still can't believe it."

"Look, I've gotta go pick up Zorii from work, but expect a call from Holdo later, explaining more of the details." Poe clears his throat. "I'm really happy for you, man."

"Thank you. And not just for saying that, for everything you did. I will..." Ben trails off, grasping for words again, "I'll never be able to express to you what it means to me."

"Talk to you soon."

"Okay, bye."

Ben lowers his phone back to the bed and squeezes the inner corners of his eyes, trying to control his shock.

Pinned underneath him, arms over her head and hair spread across the mattress lies Rey, looking up at him with a curious mixture of fondness and disbelief.

"You didn't...think it was a problem to answer _while _we were fucking?" She says, only half serious, because she's breaking into a stream of hysterical, relieved giggles that tell Ben she overheard the entire conversation.

"I was desperate to know." He defends, and leans down to hide his splotchy face in her neck, breathing in deep.

"You're literally still inside me." She counters, and wiggles her hips to prove her point. It wedges him a fraction deeper and he groans.

"Would you have preferred I pulled out just before I answered? Would it really have made that much of a difference?"

She lets out another laugh, less hysterical this time, and loops her arms around his back, pressing a kiss into his hair before she whispers, "Guess not."

They lie like that for a few seconds, both absorbing the enormity of this, and then she whispers again, gently, against the shell of his ear, "You got away from him."

He heaves a huge sigh, curling his body even tighter into hers. "You can have the life you want." She adds, rolling her hips under him a little, and he never imagined that being freed from a financial and professional stranglehold would be arousing, but here he is, imagining all that is to come, all the decisions that he and only he will get to make, the things he will do and say with total autonomy because that man is gone, and the next thing he knows he's pressing his hips closer to hers again, pulling out far enough to make her whine at the loss and sink her fingertips into his back.

"I'm all yours now," he grates, and Rey's eyes fly open from where they had fluttered shut in bliss, tracking the movement of his face as he drills into her. " I can finally..." he trails off, overwhelmed with emotion, and leans down on his elbows to kiss her, deep and long, reducing his movements to a slow, close grind that makes her moan into his mouth and pull on his hair a little. "I can finally be who you want me to be." 

She arches under him, pushing one of his arms downwards til he uses his thumb to start working her clit, and she shakes her head for a moment, mouth falling open over and over before she gains enough control to speak. "No, Ben." She gasps and clenches her teeth, "The man I love is the one you want to be." 

He closes his eyes, too close to climax to allow the idea that he might cry again, but he feels an equal swell of something, of ecstasy of both body and mind as he marvels at this moment, at all of it, at _her_.

He's with someone who has helped him redeem himself, and done some of the redemption for him, when he was too stubborn or too stupid to know how. Someone who refused to be scared away when he tried so hard to make that happen. She taught him to refuse, too. To refuse to shape himself into others' ideas of who he should be. The person he's becoming isn't because of Rey, or Snoke, or his parents, or anyone else. It's because of him.

He holds back, tensing his entire body, until he feels her crash over the edge and the pulsing from inside her begins. She's silent, breath gusting in and out as she tries to ride the pleasure, and only then does he allow himself to empty inside her, the heady cloud of emotion hanging over him only serving to heighten his orgasm beyond belief.

He stays inside her for a long time, committing every aspect of the moment to memory. How her sheets smell, the feeling of his foot against a scab on her ankle, her soft breaths underneath him, the burn in his arm muscles as he continues to hold his weight off of her. The soft, pure, creamy contentment he feels. Absolute relief. The way her eyelashes brush his shoulder.

He wonders, down the road, how many times he'll stop what he's doing, and close his eyes to replay this moment.

\-------

Rey gets out of the shower, winding her hair into a wet coil on her head as she makes her way to her dresser, when Ben comes in through the door, the mail from her street-level box clutched in her hand.

"There's some stuff here for Maz, maybe when I see my parents next weekend I can drop it off, and the-"

Rey's hands lower from her hair, registering the way his voice stopped short, and turns to look at him.

"Ben?"

She stares at his broad back, and at a wet spot just below his collar, where his own damp hair has darkened the fabric of his t-shirt. He's still, seemingly staring down at something in his hands, ignoring Bebe as she cries for pets from where she lays on the floor.

Ben never ignores Bebe.

He turns around finally, in a slow, deliberate circle, and glances up at her, face inscrutable, holding out an envelope.

_New Mexico Department of Public Health - Vital Records_ is printed at the top of the return address.  
  
She swallows hard, palms immediately clammy, and reaches out to take it from him. She refuses to meet his questioning gaze as she slides her finger under the envelope and draws it across.

She's too hasty: the paper bites into the corner of her index finger and she swears, shoving it into her mouth for a moment to suck away the drop of blood. Ben, thankfully, doesn't come any closer.

Her eyes skim the document, a few key phrases sticking out.

_...your request regarding an absent citizen of the State of New Mexico..._

_...missing for seven years or more with no provable contact or whereabouts discovered..._

_...no known property or assests, though anything later discovered may be transferred to the claimant..._

She sits heavily onto her side of the bed.

After a long moment, that she spends listening to the waves and the pounding of her own heart, he mutters, "What is that, Rey?"

"It's," her voice is shaking, "a presumption of death document."

He doesn't ask any of the obvious questions. He just waits, and she's grateful.

"The summer of my junior year, a woman came up to me to buy a Popsicle from Plutt's van. Nice lady. Turned out she was a social worker. We started chatting. Eventually she started showing up at that park more often, asking me more questions. We were friends." Rey tugs mercilessly on a loose thread in her comforter, even while knowing it'll leave a snag. "She helped me file missing persons paperwork for my mom. I..." she hesitates, "I don't even remember my dad's name, so I couldn't do it for him."

Ben sits on the foot of the bed, half facing her, but mostly looking towards the kitchen.

"And now it's been seven years. So...that's it. She's legally dead."

She's surprised by how she feels. Sad, certainly. Disappointed. But she thought she'd be bereft of her last few threads of hope. Instead, she realizes those left her a long time ago. Some part of her knew this was coming, and started preparing. It makes it hurt a little less, now.

"Are you okay?" He says softly, and reaches one hand blindly back across the covers until it reaches hers, until their fingertips tangle.

"Yeah," she breathes, turning to look out at the water, "it makes no difference to me now. It's official, I guess. But it's meaningless. I'm the same person whether she's dead or alive. Either way she's gone."

She glances back at the paper for one brief moment and then stands, crossing to the kitchen island and the tall trash can that abuts it. She presses the foot pedal and unceremoniously drops the letter in, not a trace of remorse or grief on her face.

Ben sits on the end of the bed, looking a little expectant. "I love you." He says it with falling intonation, a tone that belies such seriousness, that it reminds her even those hallowed words cannot contain what he feels.

"I love you." She repeats back, and relishes the tiny smile that quirks his mouth. "Ready to go to work?" 

They hold hands on their walk down Cowry Avenue. They wave at Finn and Hux talking on the curb, they glance away and share a mutual grimace as Rose argues with Jeff the vegetable guy. 

Ben comes in to taste the test batches for the new summer flavors, gives Rey a few notes, and then vanishes over to First Order. 

He sitting in his car in the alley and waiting for her to finish prep for tomorrow. She bounces out the back door of the parlor, locking it behind her. He leans over to open her door, and the motion brings his face into the light. Her eyes trace his jaw and his brow and the long lines of his body, all relaxed, softened into someone so achingly, infinitely handsome. She can't help the smile stretches wide across her face as she climbs in. "Hi."

"What's with that grin?" He teases, sliding a hand onto her thigh as they pull out of the alley.

She shrugs. "Just happy."

He nods, rolling down the windows to let in the breeze coming off the water, and squeezes her leg a little. 

"Me too."

\-------

They stand nervously outside his front door, Rey with both hands clutched around the carrier, Ben fiddling with his keys in one hand.

"Ready?"

She shrugs and half shakes her head. "No. I guess so. I don't know."

"Let's just do it."

She takes a deep breath, seems to steel herself, and nods.

He opens the door, greeted by the familiar mewl of Star as she wakes up from a nap on top of the fridge, but then she freezes, green eyes riveted onto the plastic and wire container in Rey's arms. 

Rey sets it on the ground with a level of caution normally attributed to someone defusing a bomb, and the little door lets out a creak as it opens.

After a moment, Bebe reaches one paw out and touches the hardwood. Seemingly satisfied that the floor is not toxic and/or grass, which she hates, she creeps out, legs bent, body held low to the ground. She sweeps her head back and forth, sniffing.

From there she finally seems to register Star's presence, and goes totally still.

The humans are breathless too. Waiting. Watching. Bebe lets out a trilling sound, almost like a question, and Star's tail puffs up a little. She lets out a single, tiny hiss, and Bebe scampers off. They both hear the hollow thunk, as Bebe apparently hauls herself into the bathtub. 

"Well," Ben says uncertainly, but stops there, looking over at Rey. 

She shrugs, equally as unsure how to describe what they witnessed. "Should we start dinner?"

When they both turn away from the stove to plate up their food, there they are: Bebe on the back of the couch and Star on the counter, staring at each other unblinking across the ten feet of distance between them. Both their furry little faces look remarkably human: angry and standoffish.

"With time, they'll learn to tolerate each other," Ben says breezily, nudging his broccoli over to one side, and Rey snorts.

As they sit down to eat, Rey glances out at the yard. Mouth full of steamed veggies, she garbles, "So about those garden gnomes."

Ben groans, leans to steal a green bean off her plate, "Not this again."

"Your mom should get some, I bet they would scare off those raccoons Han keeps trying to feed."

Ben laughs into his napkin, glaring at Rey as he tries hard not to choke on his mouthful of food, and swallows some of it down. "I'll have to mention it at Sunday dinner."

"Or we could just get some ourselves. maybe. Stop a raccoon problem from developing in the first place."

"Preventative gnomes?" He rephrases, and Rey laughs, spearing another green bean longways with her fork. 

"Or you know, maybe just a birdbath." 

The next weekend, they drive to the garden center in Hoth Cove. They get one. Ben admits to her, one morning during sunrise, that waking up to the sound of the chirps and lilting bird songs maybe isn't so bad. 

He's standing on the grass that evening, watching two sparrows dip their heads in to the water, and turns to look when he hears the front door slam shut. Her face is bright and alive as she sets a Tico's Produce bag on the counter and toes off her shoes. 

Ben takes a deep breath, wide eyes staring at her through the fading light, then comes in from the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some epilogue-y bits still to come, certainly. But I have a lot of new stories brewing inside me that I'm excited to start :)
> 
> That aside, thanks for being such incredible readers, for allowing me the grace to write a long, complicated, and at times painful and frustrating story. I got to take these characters on the exact path I imagined for them and I had you with me for all of it. <3


End file.
